"Give me your roots, O Larch Tree!" cried Hiawatha, "to bind the ends of my canoe together, that the water may not enter and the river may not wet me!" The larch-tree shivered in the air and touched Hiawatha's forehead with its tassels, sighing: "Take them, take them!" as he tore the fibres from the earth. With the tough roots he sewed the ends of his canoe together and bound the bark tightly to the framework, and his canoe became light and graceful in shape. He took the balsam and pitch of the fir-tree and smeared the seams so that no water might ooze in, and he asked for the quills of Kagh, the hedgehog, to make a necklace and two stars for his canoe. Thus did Hiawatha build his birch canoe, and all the life and magic of the forest was held in it; for it had all the lightness of the bark of the birch-tree, all the toughness of the boughs of the cedar, and it danced and floated on the river as lightly as a yellow leaf. Hiawatha did not have any paddles for his canoe, and he needed none, for he could guide it by merely wishing that it should turn to the right or to the left. The canoe would move in whatever direction he chose, and would glide over the water swiftly or slowly just as he desired. All Hiawatha had to do was to sit still and think where he cared to have it take him. Never was there such a wonderful craft before. Then Hiawatha called to Kwasind, and asked for help in clearing away all the sunken logs and all the rocks, and sandbars in the river-bed, and he and Kwasind traveled down the whole length of the river. Kwasind swam and dove like a beaver, tugging at sunken logs, scooping out the sandbars with his hands, kicking the boulders out of the stream and digging away all the snags and tangles. They went back and forth and up and down the river, Kwasind working just as hard as he was able, and Hiawatha showing him where he could find new logs and rocks, and sandbars to remove, until together they made the channel safe and regular all the way from where the river rose among the mountains in little springs to where it emptied a wide and rolling sheet of water into the bay of Taquamenaw. VIII HIAWATHA'S FISHING IN his wonderful canoe, Hiawatha sailed over the shining Big-Sea-Water to go fishing and to catch with his fishing-line made of cedar no other than the very King of Fishes--Nahma, the big sturgeon. All alone Hiawatha sailed over the lake, but on the bow of his canoe sat a squirrel, frisking and chattering at the thought of all the wonderful sport that he was going to see. Through the calm, clear water Hiawatha saw the fishes swimming to and fro. First he saw the yellow perch that shone like a sunbeam; then he saw the crawfish moving along the sandy bottom of the lake, and at last he saw a great blue shape that swept the sand floor with its mighty tail and waved its huge fins lazily backward and forward, and Hiawatha knew that this monster was Nahma, the Sturgeon, King of all the Fishes.