Hill, the barber-surgeon, had explored the whole neighbourhood in search of herbs for his medical purposes; and he told of a pool of remarkably fine water, about two miles off, which abounded with carp. They had only to pass a net through the water, he said, and they would soon catch enough to feed their company. This might be true, but where was the net? Hill could not furnish one; but he could tell how one might be obtained within a short time. He could shew where flax grew in abundance; and if two or three clever pairs of hands would help him, the fibres might be dried and pulled out and twisted and woven into a net, and in three days they might have a plentiful meal of fish. Hill’s wife and her sister Kate, and the three children, went with him about this business. “If they had but left us our dogs,” said Arnall, a great sportsman and one of the partners of the store or shop where all the commodities of the settlement were exchanged,—“if they had but left us our dogs, we might have started game in abundance.” “And much use it would be of to us,” replied his partner, Mr. Dunn, “when we have no guns to bring it down.” “I shot a partridge without a gun, the other day,” said George Prest, the butcher’s son. “Mr. Arnall laughed at my bow and arrows then; but perhaps he would like such an one now very well.” “If you will bring me such an one to-morrow, my boy,” said Arnall, “you shall have the first bird I bring down.” “I am afraid your arrows are not strong enough to kill a hare,” said Dunn. “If you help me to a hare, you shall have her skin to make a cap of for your bare head.” “If your dogs will run me down a porcupine,” said the boy, “you shall have your hare and her skin into the bargain. A hedgehog’s bristles are strong enough to wound a partridge, but nothing less than a porcupine quill will reach larger game.” So saying, George ran off to beg a string of the gut of the antelope from Mrs. Stone, and to find a suitable slip of wood for a bow, and some lighter pieces for arrows, with tufts of the soft hair of the antelope, which must serve instead of feathers till a bird could be brought down. Meanwhile, Arnall climbed a hill, and whistled shrill and long for his dogs, one of which at length made his appearance, limping and wearied. Jowler had, however, sport enough in him to turn out a hedgehog, which was immediately killed, stripped of its bristles, and put away to be cooked the next day, after the manner of the natives, if better food should fall short.