Let me see,"-- and Jack looked down at a piece of timber on which he had been labouring, with a peculiar gaze of abstraction, which he always assumed when trying to invent or discover anything.
"What say you to building a boat ?" he inquired, looking up hastily.
"Take far too long," was the reply; "can't be bothered waiting.

I want to begin at once!" Again Jack considered.

"I have it!" he cried.

"We'll fell a large tree and launch the trunk of it in the water, so that when you want to fish you've nothing to do but to swim out to it." "Would not a small raft do better ?" said I.
"Much better; but we have no ropes to bind it together with.

Perhaps we may find something hereafter that will do as well, but, in the meantime, let us try the tree." This was agreed on, so we started off to a spot not far distant, where we knew of a tree that would suit us, which grew near the water's edge.