Then the carpenters became basket-makers, and they did not succeed badly in this new manufacture.  At the point of the lake which projected to the north, they had discovered an osier-bed in which grew a large number of purple osiers.  Before the rainy season, Pencroft and Herbert had cut down these useful shrubs, and their branches, well prepared, could now be effectively employed.  The first attempts were somewhat crude, but in consequence of the cleverness and intelligence of the workmen, by consulting, and recalling the models which they had seen, and by emulating each other, the possessions of the colony were soon increased by several baskets of different sizes.  The storeroom was provided with them, and in special baskets Neb placed his collection of rhizomes, stone-pine almonds, etc.

During the last week of the month of August the weather moderated again.  The temperature fell a little, and the tempest abated.  The colonists sallied out directly.  There was certainly two feet of snow on the shore, but they were able to walk without much difficulty on the hardened surface.  Cyrus Harding and his companions climbed Prospect Heights.

What a change!  The woods, which they had left green, especially in the part at which the firs predominated, had disappeared under a uniform color.  All was white, from the summit of Mount Franklin to the shore, the forests, the plains, the lake, the river.  The waters of the Mercy flowed under a roof of ice, which, at each rising and ebbing of the tide, broke up with loud crashes.  Numerous birds fluttered over the frozen surface of the lake.  Ducks and snipe, teal and guillemots were assembled in thousands.  The rocks among which the cascade flowed were bristling with icicles.  One might have said that the water escaped by a monstrous gargoyle, shaped with all the imagination of an artist of the Renaissance.  As to the damage caused by the storm in the forest, that could not as yet be ascertained; they would have to wait till the snowy covering was dissipated.

Gideon Spilett, Pencroft, and Herbert did not miss this opportunity of going to visit their traps.  They did not find them easily, under the snow with which they were covered.  They had also to be careful not to fall into one or other of them, which would have been both dangerous and humiliating; to be taken in their own snares!  But happily they avoided this unpleasantness, and found their traps perfectly intact.  No animal had fallen into them, and yet the footprints in the neighborhood were very numerous, among others, certain very clear marks of claws.  Herbert did not hesitate to affirm that some animal of the feline species had passed there, which justified the engineer’s opinion that dangerous beasts existed in Lincoln Island.  These animals doubtless generally lived in the forests of the Far West, but pressed by hunger, they had ventured as far as Prospect Heights.  Perhaps they had smelled out the inhabitants of Granite House.  “Now, what are these feline creatures?” asked Pencroft.  “They are tigers,” replied Herbert.  “I thought those beasts were only found in hot countries?”