noon
He was , however , ill at ease over the incident . It added an element of uncertainty to an already precarious position . Three days later he was intensely thankful the conversation had taken place . After the noon meal he lay on his blanket under the hemlock shelter , smoking and lazily watching Injin Charley busy at the side of the trail . The Indian had terminated a long two days ' search by toting from the forest a number of strips of the outer bark of white birch , in its green state pliable as cotton , thick as leather , and light as air . These he had cut into arbitrary patterns known only to himself , and was now sewing as a long shapeless sort of bag or sac to a slender beech-wood oval . Later it was to become a birch-bark canoe , and the beech-wood oval would be the gunwale .