mud and moss, and left in that condition in the meantime, until the
pit-saw could be set to work to produce boards for the better protection
of the walls without and within. The window and door frames were also
made, and covered temporarily with parchment, until the arrival of the
ship should enable them to fill the former with glass and the latter
with broad panels.

The effect of the parchment-covered door, however, was found to be
somewhat troublesome. Being large, and tightly covered, it sounded,
when shut violently, with a noise so strongly resembling the report of a
distant cannon that, during the first day after its erection, the men
more than once rushed down to the beach in the expectation of seeing the
long and ardently wished-for ship, which was now so much beyond the time
appointed for her arrival that Stanley began to entertain serious
apprehensions for her safety. This ship was to have sailed from York
Fort, the principal depot of the fur-traders in Hudson's Bay, with
supplies and goods for trade with the Esquimaux during the year. She
was expected at Ungava in August, and it was now September. The frost
was beginning, even at this early period, to remind the expedition of
the long winter that was at hand, and in the course of a very few weeks
Hudson's Straits would be impassable; so that the anxiety of the traders
was natural.

Just before the partitions of the chief dwelling-house were completed,
Stanley went to the tent in which his wife and child were busily
employed in sewing.

"Can you spare Edith for a short time, wife?" said he, as his partner
looked up to welcome him.

"Yes, for a short time; but she is becoming so useful to me that I
cannot afford to spare her long."

"I'm afraid," said Stanley, as he took his child by the hand and led her
away, "that I must begin to put in my claim to the services of this
little baggage, who seems to be so useful. What say you, Eda; will you
allow me to train you to shoot, and fish, and walk on snow-shoes, and so
make a trader of you?"

"I would like very much, papa, to learn to walk on snowshoes, but I
think the gun would hurt me--it seems to kick so. Don't you think I am
too little to shoot a gun off?"

Stanley laughed at the serious way in which the child received the
proposal.

"Well, then, we won't teach you to shoot yet, Eda; but, as you say, the
snow-shoe walking is worth learning, for if you cannot walk on the long
shoes when the snow f