One steel tool having much popularity among canoe-building Indians was the pioneer's splitting tool known as the "froe." This was a heavy steel blade, fifteen to twenty inches long, about two inches wide, and nearly a quarter inch thick along its back. One end of the blade ended in a tight loop into which a heavy hardwood handle, about a foot long, was set at right angles to the back edge of the blade, so that, when held in the hand, the blade was cutting edge down, with the handle upright. The froe was driven into the end of a balk of timber to be split by blows from a wooden maul on the back of its blade. Once the split was started, the maul was dropped and the hand that had held it was placed at the end of the blade away from the handle. By twisting the blade with the two hands the split could be forced open. The froe was a most powerful and efficient splitting tool when narrow, short plank, or battens, were required. The balk to be split was usually placed more or less end-up, as its length permitted, in the crotch of a felled tree, so as to hold it steady during the splitting. The pioneer used this tool to make clapboards and riven shingles; the Indian canoe builder found it handy for all splitting. [Illustration: Figure 17 Froe] Another pioneer tool that became useful to the Indian canoe builder was the "shaving horse." A sort of bench and vise, it was used by Indians in a variety of forms, all based on the same principle of construction. Usually a seven-foot-long bench made of a large log flattened on top was supported by two or four legs, one pair being high enough to raise that end of the bench several feet off the ground to provide a seat for the operator. To the top of the bench was secured a shorter, wedge-shaped piece flattened top and bottom, with one end beveled and fastened to the bench and the other held about 12 inches above it by a support tenoned into the bench about thirty inches from the high end. Through the bench and the shorter piece were cut slots, about four feet from the high end of the bench and aligned to receive an arm pivoted on the bench and extending from the ground to above the upper slot. The arm was shaped to overhang the slot on the front, toward the operator's end of the bench, and on each side. The lower portion of the arm was squared to fit the slot, and a crosspiece was secured to, or through, its lower end. [Illustration: Figure 18 SHAVING HORSE.]