A consultation was now held upon what was best to be done. To proceed on the voyage appeared totally out of the question; and it only remained to determine which way was the easiest and readiest to get back to Malden. All was at a stand, when an officer in the American service proposed the beating out of an iron crow bar, and the manufacturing of new gudgeons. This was thought to be impracticable; but necessity, the mother of invention, having set all our heads to work, an anvil was formed of a number of axes laid upon a block of wood; a large fire was kindled, and a party of us acting as smiths in turns, by the end of three hours contrived to hammer out one very respectable gudgeon. In the mean time others of the passengers were employed in making a new tiller, and others undertook to fish for the cable and anchor that had been slipped, whilst the sailors were kept busily employed at the rigging. By nightfall the vessel was so far refitted that no apprehensions were any longer entertained about our being able to reach Malden in safety, and some began to think there would be no danger in prosecuting the voyage down the lake. The captain said that his conduct must be regulated entirely by the appearance of the weather on the following day. [Sidenote: MEET TWO YOUNG TRAVELLERS.] Early the next morning, whilst we yet remained stretched in our births, our party was much surprised at hearing the sound of strange voices upon deck; but our surprise was still greater, when on a nearer approach we recognized them to be the voices of two young friends of ours, who, like ourselves, had crossed the Atlantic to make a tour of the continent of North America, and whom, but a few days before we had quitted Philadelphia, we had accompanied some miles from that city on their way towards the south. They had travelled, it seemed, from Philadelphia to Virginia, afterwards to Kentucky, and had found their way from the Ohio to Detroit on horseback, after encountering numberless inconveniences. There they had engaged a passage in a little sloop bound to Fort Erie, the last vessel which was to quit that port during the present season. They had embarked the preceding day, and in the night had run in to Put-in-Bay, as the wind was not favourable for going down the lake. The commander of the sloop offered to stay by our vessel, and to give her every assistance in his power, if our captain chose to proceed down the lake with him. The offer was gladly accepted, and it was agreed that the two vessels should sail together as soon as the wind was favourable.