The squaws paddled us quickly across, and we laughed and chatted as we bounded over the blue waves, until we were landed in a dark cedar-swamp, in the heart of which we found the Indian encampment.

A large party were lounging around the fire, superintending the drying of a quantity of venison which was suspended on forked sticks.  Besides the flesh of the deer, a number of musk-rats were skinned, and extended as if standing bolt upright before the fire, warming their paws.  The appearance they cut was most ludicrous.  My young friend pointed to the musk-rats, as she sank down, laughing, upon one of the skins.

Old Snow-storm, who was present, imagined that she wanted one of them to eat, and very gravely handed her the unsavoury beast, stick and all.

“Does the old man take me for a cannibal?” she said.  “I would as soon eat a child.”

Among the many odd things cooking at that fire there was something that had the appearance of a bull-frog.

“What can that be?” she said, directing my eyes to the strange monster.  “Surely they don’t eat bull-frogs!”

This sally was received by a grunt of approbation from Snow-storm; and, though Indians seldom forget their dignity so far as to laugh, he for once laid aside his stoical gravity, and, twirling the thing round with a stick, burst into a hearty peal.

“Muckakee!  Indian eat muckakee?—­Ha! ha!  Indian no eat muckakee!  Frenchmans eat his hind legs; they say the speckled beast much good.  This no muckakee!—­the liver of deer, dried—­very nice—­Indian eat him.”

“I wish him much joy of the delicate morsel,” said the saucy girl, who was intent upon quizzing and examining everything in the camp.

We had remained the best part of an hour, when Mrs. Muskrat laid hold of my hand, and leading me through the bush to the shore, pointed up significantly to a cloud, as dark as night, that hung loweringly over the bush.

“Thunder in that cloud—­get over the lake—­quick, quick, before it breaks.”  Then motioning for us to jump into the canoe, she threw in the paddles, and pushed us from shore.

We saw the necessity of haste, and both plied the paddle with diligence to gain the opposite bank, or at least the shelter of the island, before the cloud poured down its fury upon us.  We were just in the middle of the current when the first peal of thunder broke with startling nearness over our heads.  The storm frowned darkly upon the woods; the rain came down in torrents; and there were we exposed to its utmost fury in the middle of a current too strong for us to stem.

“What shall we do?  We shall be drowned!” said my young friend, turning her pale, tearful face towards me.

“Let the canoe float down the current till we get close to the island; then run her into the land.  I saved myself once before by this plan.”

We did so, and were safe; but there we had to remain, wet to our skins, until the wind and the rain abated sufficiently for us to manage our little craft.  “How do you like being upon the lake in a storm like this?” I whispered to my shivering, dripping companion.