In the warm sunshine and with a clear sky above them they seemed to have no need of a house, but all of them knew how quickly the weather could change in the great valley. It would be hard to stand a fierce storm on the oasis, and one of the secrets of the great and continued success of the five was to prepare for every emergency of which they could think.
Long practice had given them high skill, and four of them set to work with their tomahawks to build a hut of bark and poles, working swiftly, dextrously and mostly in silence, while Silent Tom went back to the fishing. They toiled that day and at least half the night with poles and bark, and by noon the next day they had finished a little cabin, which they were sure would hold, with the aid of the great trees, against anything. It had a floor of poles smoothed with dead leaves, one small window and a low door, over which they purposed to hang blankets if a blowing rain came.
Throughout their hard labors they had an abundance of fish, but nothing else, and they not only began to long for other food, but health demanded it as well.
“Ef Long Jim Hart offers fish to me, ag’in,” said the shiftless one, “I’ll take it an’ cram it down his own throat.”
“And then how’ll you live?” asked Paul.
“I think I’ll take Long Jim hisself an’ eat him, beginnin’ at his head, which is the softest part o’ him.”
“Now that the cabin is done,” said Henry, “maybe we can devote some attention to hunting.”
“Huntin’ in black mud that’ll suck you down to your waist in a second?” said Shif’less Sol.
“I think I might find a pathway on the other side of the stream, and this swamp ought to hold a lot of game. Bears love swamps, and I might run across a deer.”
“Would the Indians hear you if you fired?” asked Paul.