"Here," answered Sam.
"Before we start?"
"Yes, certainly. We'll kill some game, cook it at night and eat it cold on the way with cold bread. That will save our bacon to cook fish with down at Pensacola."
"Well, but how about sleeping?"
"That is one of my reasons for making so large a boat. We can sleep in her very comfortably, one staying awake to steer and paddle, all of us taking turns at it."
This plan was eagerly welcomed by the boys, who speedily fell to work upon the log under Sam's direction. The poplar was very easily worked, and the boys were all of them skilled in the use of the axes. Relieving each other at the work, they did not permit it to cease for a moment, and in half an hour the trunk of the tree was severed in two places, giving them a log of the desired length to work on.
Then began the work of hewing it into shape, and this admitted of four boys working at once, two with the axes, one with the adze and one with the hatchet. When night came the log had already assumed the shape of a rude boat, turned bottom up, and Sam was more than satisfied with the progress made. His comrades were enthusiastic, however, and insisted upon building a bonfire and working for an hour or two by its light, after supper. They could not work at shaping it by such a light, but they turned it over and hewed the side which was to be dug out, down to a level with its future gunwales. The next day they began work early, and when they quitted it at night their task was done. The boat was a rude affair but reasonably well shaped, broad, so that she drew very little water considering her weight, and with a keel which kept her perfectly steady in the water.