mail-boat with hot dinners."

"Sposum me have knife, I help you. Leave _waghon_ home yesterday for
_h_ould woman make baskets," said Peter, ruefully.

"I guess we shall manage with the axes, although we need a knife like
your Indian draw-knife. Reach me a large decoy, and the heaviest of
those cod-leads."

La Salle had already "laid out" with the point of his penknife the shape
of one of the sections of his proposed stove upon one of the decoys from
which Regnar had already removed the iron leg, which was about six
inches long, sharp pointed, and intended to be driven into the ice. Each
section was twenty inches long, eight and a half inches wide at the
lower end, and two and a half at the upper; and luckily the outline of
the goose gave very nearly this shape, with little trimming, which was
effected by laying the iron on the lead, applying the edge of the
smaller axe as a chisel, and striking on its head with the large. The
laps were then "turned" over the edge of an axe with a billet of wood
cut from the old cross-bars of Davies's shooting-box, which were young
ash saplings. Then the pieces were put together, the laps solidly
beaten down, and despite a little irregularity of shape, the job was
not a bad one.

Five other decoys furnished as many parallelograms of seventeen by eight
and a half, which made good two and three quarter inch pipe, and
afforded nearly seven feet in length when affixed to the cylinder.

It was nearly four o'clock when the work was thus far completed.

"If we only had a flat stone to set it on," said Waring.

"I should not despair of that even," said La Salle, "if we dared look
around on some of the older floes; but we shall have to do without one
for a day or two, I think."

"Peter make glate, three, two minutes, only glate burn up every day or
two;" and hastening out, he returned with a very large decoy, which, on
account of its portentous size, had been made the leader of the "set"
when arranged on the ice.

With the axe he broke off the head, and then taking six of the ten iron
legs, he drove them two or three inches deep into the tough spruce log,
until the spikes surrounded it like the points of a crown. La Salle had
re-riveted the four others at equal distances around the base of the
stove, while Regnar had removed a part of the snow on the roof, and,
cutting a large aperture through the bottom of the inverted box, nailed
over it the eleventh decoy, through which a roughly-cut