Fishing Through the Ice

Then Jeremy Salter told us how we might lay in a store of provisions without spending powder and ball. His scheme was to go a short distance from the point, and there fish through the ice.

He not only gave this advice but went so far as to provide us with fishing tackle, and seemed to enjoy himself hugely while aiding in laying up a store of food.

It was no labor, but rather sport, to catch fish in this fashion. We caught them as fast as it was possible to haul in the lines, until when night came and we had made a sort of sled with branches of trees, we had as much of a load as we cared to drag over the ice.

By this time they were all frozen, therefore we stacked them up like fuel in the bow of the flatboat, and I dare say that had we lived on fish alone, we had in the ten hours' fishing enough food for a month.

During all this time that we were building our hut and fishing, Ben Cushing was eager to pay another visit to the Indian encampment; but Jeremy declared that the savages were not in the most friendly mood, even though they had come to make a treaty, and his father had told him plainly that he must not venture near the lodges, lest harm might come.

Such talk as this served to take away Ben's desire to see the wild savages in their own camps, and I was glad because of it, for instead of spending half a day when time was precious, we, with Jeremy's aid, set about laying up a greater store of fuel, until the flat-boat had a full cargo of wood and fish, therefore we need not fear hunger or cold during the winter.