“Yes. I didn’t fall in, you know.”
“Then I don’t ask odds of anybody. I’d rather have a good ax, but when I can’t get my rather I take the next best thing.”
Adrian procured the strips of birch, which grows so plentifully to hand in all that woodland, and when Pierre had trimmed it into the desired shape he deftly rolled it and tied it with stout rootlets, and behold! there was a shapely sort of kettle, with a twig for a handle. But of what use it might be the city lad had yet to learn.
Pierre filled the affair with water and put into it a good handful of the beans. Then he fixed a crotched stick over his fire and hung the birch kettle upon it.
“Oh! don’t waste them. I know. I saw Angelique soak them, as they did at camp. I know, now. If we can’t cook them we can make them swell up in water, and starving men can exist on such food till they reach a settlement. Of course, we’ll start as soon as you’re all right.”
“We’ll start when we’re ready. That’s after we’ve had something to eat and made our new canoe. Never struck a spot where there was likelier birches. ’Twon’t be the first one I’ve built or seen built. Say! seems as if that God that Margot is always saying takes care of folks must have had a hand in this. Don’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” answered Adrian, reverently. Surely, Pierre was a changed and better lad.
Then his eyes rested on the wooden dinner-pot, and to his astonishment it was not burning, but hung steadily in its place and the water in it was already beginning to simmer. Above the water-line the bark shriveled and scorched slightly, but Pierre looked out for this and with a scoop made from a leaf replenished the water as it steamed away. The beans, too, were swelling and gave every promise of cooking—in due course of time. Meanwhile, the cook rolled himself over and about in the warmth of the fire till his clothes were dry and all the cold had left his body. Also, he had observed Adrian’s surprise with a pardonable pride.
“Lose an Indian in the woods and he’s as rich as a lord. It’s the Indian in me coming out now.”
“It’s an extra sense. Divination, instinct—something better than education.”