Hector felled a tree to mark the site of their house near the birches, and they made a regular blaze on the trees as they returned home towards the wigwam, that they might not miss the place.
They found less difficulty in retracing their path than they had formerly, a there were some striking peculiarities to mark it, and they had learned to be very minute in the remarks they made as they travelled, so that they now seldom missed the way they came by.

A few days after this, they removed all their household stores, viz.

the axe, the tin pot, bows and arrows, baskets, and bags of dried fruit, the dried venison and fish, and the deerskin; nor did they forget the deer scalp, which they bore away as a trophy, to be fastened up over the door of their new dwelling, for a memorial of their first hunt on the shores of the Rice Lake.

The skin was given to Catharine to sleep on.
The boys were now busy from morning till night chopping down trees for house-logs.

It was a work of time and labour, as the axe was blunt, and the oaks hard to cut; but they laboured on without grumbling, and Kate watched the fall of each tree with lively joy.