When they came to the long, narrow lake on the lower reaches of the river, the sun was setting. They were all pretty much exhausted with the toil and excitement of the day.
"I vote we stop here," said Mac. "There'll be a moon toward midnight, and we can go on then. We ought to get some sleep."
"I'm too hungry to sleep," said Fred.
"Well, so am I," Mac admitted. "But we can rest, anyway."
So they drew up the canoe and lighted a fire, partly from force of habit and partly to drive away the mosquitoes. They carefully lifted the fox cage ashore.
"We've nothing for them to eat," Horace said anxiously, "but they ought to have water, at any rate."
The difficulty was that they had nothing to put water into. Mac made a sort of cup from an old envelope, and filled it with water, but the animals shrank away and would not touch it. Feeling sure, however, that they must be thirsty, the boys carried the cage to the river, and set one end of it into the shallow water. For a few minutes the mother fox was shy, but presently she drank eagerly; then the cubs dipped their sharp noses into the water.
The boys spread their only blanket on a few hemlock boughs and lay down. Although they were so thoroughly tired, none of them could sleep. Fred's stomach was gnawed by hunger; he was still much excited, and in the rush of the river he fancied every minute or two that he heard the trappers approaching.
They lay there for some time, talking at intervals, and at last Mac got up restlessly. He threw fresh wood on the fire, in order to make a bright blaze; then from an old pine log close by he began to cut a number of resinous splinters. When he had collected a large handful of them, he went down to the canoe, and tried to fix them in the ring in the bow of the craft.
"What in the world are you doing?" asked Fred, who had got up to see what Peter was about.