The fish were then suspended, Indian fashion, on forked sticks stuck in the ground and inclined at a suitable angle towards the glowing embers,--a few minutes sufficed to cook them.
"Truly," said Catharine, when the plentiful repast was set before her, "God hath, indeed, spread a table for us here in the wilderness;" so miraculous did this ample supply of delicious food seem in the eyes of this simple child of nature.
They had often heard tell of the facility with which the fish could be caught, but they had known nothing of it from their own experience, as the streams and creeks about Cold Springs afforded them but little opportunity for exercising their skill as anglers; so that, with the rude implements with which they were furnished, the result of their morning success seemed little short of divine interference in their behalf.

Happy and contented in the belief that they were not forgotten by their heavenly Father, these poor "children in the wood" looked up with gratitude to that beneficent Being who suffereth not even a sparrow to fall unheeded.
Upon Catharine, in particular, these things made a deep impression, and there as she sat in the green shade, soothed by the lulling sound of the flowing waters, and the soft murmuring of the many-coloured insects that hovered among the fragrant leaves which thatched her sylvan bower, her young heart was raised in humble and holy aspirations to the great Creator of all things living.

A peaceful calm diffused itself over her mind, as with hands meekly folded across her breast, the young girl prayed with the guileless fervour of a trusting and faithful heart.
The sun was just sinking in a flood of glory behind the dark pine-woods at the head of the lake, when Hector and Louis, who had been carefully providing fish for the morrow, (which was the Sabbath,) came loaded with their finny prey carefully strung upon a willow wand, and found Catharine sleeping in her bower.

Louis was loth to break her tranquil slumbers, but her careful brother reminded him of the danger to which she was exposed, sleeping in the dew by the water side; "Moreover," he added, "we have some distance to go, and we have left the precious axe and the birch-bark vessel in the valley." These things were too valuable to be lost, and so they roused the sleeper, and slowly recommenced their toilsome way, following the same path that they had made in the morning.

Fortunately, Hector had taken the precaution to bend down the flexile branches of the dogwood and break the tops of the young trees that they had passed between on their route to the lake, and by this clue they were enabled with tolerable certainty to retrace their way, nothing doubting of arriving in time at the wigwam of boughs by the rock in the valley.
Their progress was, however, slow, burdened with the care of the lame girl, and heavily laden with the fish.