Feather

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The next morning, she woke up well after dawn. Last night had been a hard one. She untied Feather and went to the stream for a drink. When she was there, she saw the same berry bush and went to pick some to eat. She was hungry but nothing unbearable.

After this, she walk into the bush to find a nice piece of wood to hollow out because she had nothing to carry water with. All she had was the steal cup and it only held about 1 cup of water. So, off she went into the bush to find a nice piece of wood, either a fallen log, or perhaps an old stump. She didn't want to leave Feather at the shelter and she didn't want to lead her, so she jumped on her back grabbed a hand full of mane and she rode off in search of a chunk of wood to hollow out.

In a few minutes she found an old tree that had fallen and found that it was soft to the tip of the knife. So she took her machete and cut out a piece about 1/2 a foot long and 1 foot deep. She brought this piece back to the shelter and took her knife out to start hollowing out a hole. When she started, she noticed that cutting out the log was harder than it sounded. The wood was still hard enough so that she had to push quite hard, but if she would push too hard the knife would go too far and not want to come out when she pulled on it. She worked for about an hour, patiently poking the knife in three different places, making a triangle shape and then on the last cut popping the small piece out. In the end, she scraped the knife along the bottom of the 'container' as she called it, to make it a bit smoother. She walked over to where she had taken the containers' wood from and cut a piece from the log. She caved it until she had it about the same size of the containers top and it fit in like a lid. She was happy with the way the container looked and now she would see if the time she spent was worth it. She brought it to the stream and dipped it into the water, pulling it out when the water went over the top. She wiped the bottom with her hand to make sure there were no leaks. She held it up, over her head and searched the bottom for cracks or holes and she could find none. So she took her knife and cut a dip in one side if the pitcher like container, then put it to her lips and tasted the water. It tasted a bit different, but it didn't taste bad. She wasn't 100% sure of the type of wood used, but guessed that it was birch because it was so soft. She really liked the container because it could hold a lot more than steal cup she had now. She knew where she had cut this piece from so maybe a bit later she would make another one.

Right now she had other things to do. She had to gather wood before her fire went out and she knew it took a lot of wood to keep a fire going all night. But, this was not the right place to make a permanent shelter and she knew that soon her parents would call the search and rescue squad to find her. She needed to get further from home, perhaps another full day of riding. So, instead of gathering wood or making another container, she went about untying the ropes she had used to make the small shelter, packing her stuff and getting Feather ready.

Once she had done all of that, she jumped on her horses' back and off they went down the river, again.