instituted, and even
if Willock succeeded in escaping, the band would not rest till it had
discovered his hiding-place. If they came on the dugout, their search
would terminate, and his home in the crevice would escape
investigation; but if there was no dugout to satisfy curiosity, the
crevice would most probably be explored.

"Two homes ain't too many for a character like me, nohow," remarked
Brick, as he set the wagon-tongue and long boards on end to be drawn up
through the crevice. "Cold weather will be coming on in due time--say
three or four months--and what's that to me? a mere handful of time!
Well, I don't never expect to make a fire in my cave, I'll set my smoke
out in the open where it can be traced without danger to my pantry
shelves."

He was even slower about building the dugout than he had been in
arranging the miscellaneous objects in the cavern on top of the
mountain. Transporting the timbers across a mile of ridges and granite
troughs was no light work; and when his tools and material were in the
cove, the digging of the dugout was protracted because of the closeness
of water to the surface. At last he succeeded in excavating the cellar
at a spot within a few yards of the mountain, without penetrating
moistened sand. He leveled down the walls till he had a chamber about
twelve feet square. Over this he placed the wagon-tongue, converting
it into the ridge-pole, which he set upon forks cut from the near-by
cedars. Having trimmed branches of the trees in the grove, he laid
them as close together as possible, slanting from the ridge-pole to the
ground, and over these laid the bushy cedar branches. This substantial
roof he next covered with dirt, heaping it up till no glimpse of wood
was visible tinder the hard-packed dome. The end of the dugout was
closed up in the same way except for a hole near the top fitted closely
to the stovepipe and packed with mud.

Of the sideboards he fashioned a rude frame, then a door to stand in
it, fitted into grooves that it might be pushed and held into place
without hinges. "Of course I got to take down my door every time I
comes in or out," remarked Willock, regarding his structure with much
complacency, "but they's nothing else to do, and I got to be occupied."

When he had transported the stove to the cove, he set it up with a
tingle of expectant pleasure. It was to be his day of housewarming,
not because the weather had grown cold, but that he might cele