"Dear me, Peterkin," replied Jack, "I had no idea you were taking
the thing so much to heart, else I would have got you out of that
difficulty long ago. Let me see," - and Jack looked down at a
piece of timber on which he had been labouring, with a peculiar
gaze of abstraction, which he always assumed when trying to invent
or discover anything.

"What say you to building a boat?" he inquired, looking up hastily.

"Take far too long," was the reply; "can't be bothered waiting. I
want to begin at once!"

Again Jack considered. "I have it!" he cried. "We'll fell a large
tree and launch the trunk of it in the water, so that when you want
to fish you've nothing to do but to swim out to it."

"Would not a small raft do better?" said I.

"Much better; but we have no ropes to bind it together with.
Perhaps we may find something hereafter that will do as well, but,
in the meantime, let us try the tree."

This was agreed on, so we started off to a spot not far distant,
where we knew of a tree that would suit us, which grew near the
water's edge. As soon as we reached it Jack threw off his coat,
and, wielding the axe with his sturdy arms, hacked and hewed at it
for a quarter of an hour without stopping. Then he paused, and,
while he sat down to rest, I continued the work. Then Peterkin
made a vigorous attack on it, so that when Jack renewed his