Fortunately what the lady said to myself was wholly unintelligible, for I had mastered hardly as much as twenty of their “words” at the time. But I was left no room for doubt that the language was as “burning” as it was impetuous. I laughed with the others; indeed the whole thing struck me as being so comical that I was fairly doubled over with unrestrained merriment. This acted like oil on a blazing fire, and being no longer able to control herself at all, the drenched female dashed madly off to the edge of the woods, to vent her rage as best she could. The chief was immensely pleased. In the immunity from the female’s attentions and the consequent jealousy of her mate which I now enjoyed, I drove the work with hearty zest. The boat was all but finished, yet it needed digging out at least two inches more, and this I felt to be important, knowing how heavy was the log of which it was made. I had even fashioned a pair of oars, the blades of which were firmly lashed to the handles, but by then our tools of flint were almost entirely useless. Many had been lost and all had been more or less broken. The work actually ceased for lack of these necessary implements. I set my fellows to digging up the ground, in the hope of unearthing more of the pebbles which furnished the flint. In the forest, where the soil was damp, we found a white, efflorescent substance in great abundance, near the surface. This, from its peculiar taste and general appearance, I knew to be common saltpetre, doubtless of value to the commercial world, but of no account to me when I wanted flint. We tried the hillsides and various localities, but not one of the precious chalcedony pebbles could we find. The suggestion occurred to me at once that we could go to the old camp and dig all we needed, but this presented difficulties which aroused my impatience. I desired to get away before additional complications could arise. As a matter of fact, I was watching Grin very closely for evidence of further duplicity, which I thoroughly expected to detect, soon or late. If once I could find the outlet of the lake, I thought, I would say good-bye to these half-animal beings without the slightest pang of regret, for they grated on me daily, more and more. I determined to launch the boat as it was and begin my explorations. This work we undertook one sultry morning. The clay which I had plastered over the surface of the wood, where I had wished to protect it from the fire, was baked hard. We broke it away in pieces, and when it was off and the boat turned bottom downwards, I felt exceedingly proud of the work and gratified to find the craft in much better shape than I had thought to be possible.