boil we could
have in a tin cup, holding less than a pint. I wish we _could_ have a
boiled joint and a bowl of soup. I'd give something for it. I'm precious
tired of this everlasting dry roast."

"You shall have both," rejoined Lucien, "for to-morrow's dinner. I
promise you both the soup and the joint."

Again Francois laughed increduously.

"Do you mean to make soup in your shoe, Luce?"

"No; but I shall make it in this."

And Lucien held up a vessel somewhat like a water-pail, which the day
before he had himself made out of birch-bark.

"Well," replied Francois, "I know you have got a vessel that holds
water, but cold water ain't soup; and if you can boil water in that
vessel, I'll believe you to be a conjuror. I know you can do some
curious things with your chemical mixtures; but that you can't do, I'm
sure. Why, man, the bottom would be burned out of your bucket before the
water got blood-warm. Soup, indeed!"

"Never mind, Frank, you shall see. You're only like the rest of
mankind--incredulous about everything they can't comprehend. If you'll
take your hook and line, and catch some fish, I promise to give you a
dinner to-morrow, with all the regular courses--soup, fish, boiled,
roast, and dessert, too! I'm satisfied I can do all that."

"_Parbleu_! brother, you should have been cook to Lucullus. Well, I'll
catch the fish for you."

So saying, Francois took a fish-hook and line out of his pouch, and
fixing a large grasshopper upon the hook, stepped forward to the edge of
the water, and cast it in. The float was soon seen to bob and then sink,
and Francois jerked his hook ashore with a small and very pretty fish
upon it of a silver hue, with which the lake and the waters running into
it abound. Lucien told him it was a fish of the genus _Hyodon_. He also
advised him to bait with a worm, and let his bait sink to the bottom,
and he might catch a sturgeon, which would be a larger fish.

"How do you know there are sturgeon in the lake?" inquired Francois.

"I am pretty sure of that," answered the naturalist; "the sturgeon is
found all round the world in the northern temperate zone--both in its
seas and fresh waters; although, when you go farther south into the
warmer climate, no sturgeons exist. I am sure there are some here,
perhaps more than one species. Sink your bait for the sturgeon is a
toothless fish, and feeds upon soft substances at the bottom."

Francois followed the advice of his brother, and in a