ridge-poles for the roof. Then the sun came out, and
under its benign influence we forgot the hardships of
the night and went off in search of breakfast. After
that, to show the inconsequentiality of life in those
days, we fell to playing. It must have taken us all of
a month, working intermittently, to make our
tree-house; and then, when it was completed, we never
used it again.

But I run ahead of my story. When we fell to playing,
after breakfast, on the second day away from the caves,
Lop-Ear led me a chase through the trees and down to
the river. We came out upon it where a large slough
entered from the blueberry swamp. The mouth of this
slough was wide, while the slough itself was
practically without a current. In the dead water, just
inside its mouth, lay a tangled mass of tree trunks.
Some of these, what of the wear and tear of freshets
and of being stranded long summers on sand-bars, were
seasoned and dry and without branches. They floated
high in the water, and bobbed up and down or rolled
over when we put our weight upon them.

Here and there between the trunks were water-cracks,
and through them we could see schools of small fish,
like minnows, darting back and forth. Lop-Ear and I
became fishermen at once. Lying flat on the logs,
keeping perfectly quiet, waiting till the minnows came
close, we would make swift passes with our hands. Our
prizes we ate on the spot, wriggling and moist. We did