And there, sure enough, is the log-hut, and not so bad a
one either," and scrambling up the bank he entered the deserted little
tenement, well pleased to find it in tolerable repair. There were the
ashes on the stone hearth, just as it had been left years back by the old
trapper; some rough hewn shelves, a rude bedstead of cedar poles still
occupied a corner of the little dwelling; heaps of old dry moss and grass
lay upon the ground; and the little squaw pointed with one of her silent
laughs to a collection of broken egg-shells, where some wild duck had sat
and hatched her downy brood among the soft materials which she had found
and appropriated to her own purpose. The only things pertaining to the
former possessor of the log-hut were an old, rusty, battered tin pannikin,
now, alas! unfit for holding water; a bit of a broken earthen whisky jar; a
rusty nail, which Louis pounced upon, and pocketed, or rather pouched,--for
he had substituted a fine pouch of deer-skin for his worn-out pocket; and
a fishing-line of good stout cord, which was wound on a splinter of red
redar, and carefully stuck between one of the rafters and the roof of the
shanty.
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