However, I must say in his favor that he took hold with us heartily, borrowing two axes, and advising which trees might be felled the easiest, performing himself a due share of the labor, with the result that before two days had passed, thanks to his assistance and advice, we had as good a hut built over the fireplace in the stern of the flatboat as one could desire.
FISHING THROUGH THE ICE
Then Jeremy Salter told us how we might lay in a store of provisions without spending powder and ball. His scheme was to go a short distance from the point, and there fish through the ice.
He not only gave this advice but went so far as to provide us with fishing tackle, and seemed to enjoy himself hugely while aiding in laying up a store of food.
It was no labor, but rather sport, to catch fish in this fashion. We caught them as fast as it was possible to haul in the lines, until when night came and we had made a sort of sled with branches of trees, we had as much of a load as we cared to drag over the ice.
By this time they were all frozen, therefore we stacked them up like fuel in the bow of the flatboat, and I dare say that had we lived on fish alone, we had in the ten hours' fishing enough food for a month.
During all this time that we were building our hut and fishing, Ben Cushing was eager to pay another visit to the Indian encampment; but Jeremy declared that the savages were not in the most friendly mood, even though they had come to make a treaty, and his father had told him plainly that he must not venture near the lodges, lest harm might come.
