"Oh," she laughed, "I never thought of that, and it is so simple. I shall manage all right now."
After the meal of fish and beans and coffee, she disappeared once more, and later he heard her busy outside again. From the sounds he judged that she had found the bark and the other materials that she needed, and was busy sewing the covering for her tepee, and presently he heard her fixing it. The operation seemed to take quite a long time and was evidently troublesome, for once or twice sounds of vexation reached him and once he heard her cry roundly: "Confound the thing!"
He laughed silently to himself at the heartiness of her expression, then wished that he could go out and help her; but as he could not, and as she did not come to him in her difficulty he refrained from asking what the difficulty was, and from offering advice. Half an hour later she stood in the tent doorway, flushed but triumphant.
"Finished," she cried, "and Sir Christopher Wren was never more proud than I am."
"I should like to see your castle," laughed Stane.
"You shall, sir," she cried gaily. "You shall. I will lift the canvas of the tent that you may feast your eyes on my handiwork."
A moment later she was busy rolling up the canvas at one side of the tent, and presently he found himself looking out on a very fair imitation of an Indian hunting tepee. He gave the work his ungrudging admiration.
"It is a very creditable piece of work, Miss Yardely."
"Yes," she responded lightly, "and I'm not going to pretend that I'm not proud of it. I am, and having done that, I don't think Robinson Crusoe was so very wonderful after all! I think that I could have managed as well as he did on his desert island. But here's a fanfare on my own trumpet! And I've work yet to do, and I must do it before my doll's house goes completely to my head."
She dropped the canvas of the tent, fastened it into its place, and then proceeded to arrange a bed of young spruce boughs for herself. That done to her satisfaction, she prepared the last meal of the day and then in the stillness of the bright Northland evening, she went off towards the lake she had discovered in the morning, with the intention of setting the snare that she had spoken of.