" [The Indian name for the flexible roots of the
_tamarack_, or swamp larch, which they make use of in manufacturing the
birch baskets and canoes.] "I have a substitute at hand, ma belle," and
Louis pointed to the strips of leatherwood that he had collected for
binding the dressings on his cousin's foot.
When an idea once struck Louis, he never rested till he worked it out in
some way. In a few minutes he was busily employed, stripping sheets of the
ever-useful birch-bark from the trunk that had fallen at the foot of the
"Wolf's Crag," for so the children had named the memorable spot where poor
Catharine's accident had occurred.
The rough outside coatings of the bark, which are of silvery whiteness, but
are ragged from exposure to the action of the weather in the larger and
older trees, he peeled off, and then cutting the bark so that the sides
lapped well over, and the corners were secured from cracks, he proceeded
to pierce holes opposite to each other, and with some trouble managed
to stitch them tightly together, by drawing strips of the moose or
leather-wood through and through.
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