“Come along, then,” cried Robin, “an’ go you ahead, Roy; beat the track, and show us the way.”
Roy accepted the position of honour. Nelly followed him, and the whole band marched off in single file along the shores of Silver Lake. They soon reached the hut, and here again Nelly found many interesting points to dilate upon. She poured her words into willing and sympathetic ears, so that she monopolised nearly all the talk during the time that Larry O’Dowd was preparing supper.
When that meal was being eaten the conversation became more general. Plans were discussed as to the intended procedure on the morrow, and various courses of action fixed. After that, as a matter of course, the pipes came out, and while these were being smoked, only the talkative members of the party kept up the conversation at intervals. Roy and Nelly having exhausted all they had to say, began to feel desperately sleepy, and the latter, having laid her head on her father’s knee, fell sound asleep in that position. Soon the pipes were smoked out, the fire was replenished, the blankets unrolled; and in a very brief period of time the whole party was in a state of happy unconsciousness, with the exception of poor Wapaw, whose wounds made him rather restless, and the Black Swan, whose duty it was to take the first watch; for it was, deemed right to set a watch, lest by any chance the Indians should have followed the hunters’ tracks, though this was not probable.
Next morning Robin aroused the sleepers somewhat abruptly by shooting a grey hen with his rifle from the tent door.
“There’s breakfast for you and me, Nelly, at any rate,” remarked the hunter, as he went down to the lake to secure his bird.
“An’ won’t there be the bones and feathers for the rest of us?” observed Larry, yawning, “so we won’t starve this day, anyhow.”
In a few minutes every man was actively engaged in work of some sort or other. Robin and Walter prepared fishing-lines from some pieces of buckskin parchment; Black Swan and Slugs went out to cut wood for making sledges; Stiff repaired the snow-shoes of the party, or rather assisted Nelly in this operation; and Larry attended to the preparation of breakfast. Wapaw was the only one who lay still, it being thought better to make him rest, and get strong for the approaching journey.
During the course of the day the lines were tried, and a good number of fish caught. Slugs also went off in search of deer, and returned in the evening with a large stag on his broad shoulders. This raised the spirits of the party greatly, and they feasted that night, with much rejoicing, on venison, marrowbones, and broiled fish!
Thus they spent their time for several days. One party went regularly every morning to fish in the ice-holes; another party roamed the woods, and returned with grouse, or rabbits, and sometimes with deer; while some remained, part of the day at least, in the hut, mending snow-shoes and moccasins, and making other preparations.
In the midst of all this busy labour, the shoosking was not forgotten. One day Robin said to his little daughter, at breakfast, that as they had got nearly enough of provisions for the journey they would take a holiday and go and have a shoosk. The proposal was hailed with delight, and the whole party went off with the new sledges, and spent the forenoon in sliding and tumbling down the hills like very children.