, with his
knife, cut hay for a couple of hours. This was spread thickly on the
roof, to be covered with strips of Elm bark then on top of all he
threw the clay dug from the bank, piling it well back, stamping on it,
and working it down at the edges. Finally, he threw rubbish and leaves
over it, so that it was confused with the general tangle.

Thus the roof was finished, but the whole of the front was open. He
dreaded the search for more logs, so tried a new plan. He found,
first, some sticks about six feet long and two or three inches
through. Not having an axe to sharpen and drive them, he dug pairs of
holes a foot deep, one at each end and another pair near the middle of
the front ground log.

Into each of these he put a pair of upright sticks, leading up to the
eave log, one inside and one outside of it, then packed the earth
around them in the holes. Next, he went to the brook-side and cut a
number of long green willow switches about half an inch thick at the
butt. These switches he twisted around the top of each pair of stakes
in a figure 8, placing them to hold the stake tight against the bottom
and top logs at the front.

Down by the spring he now dug a hole and worked water and clay
together into mortar, then with a trowel cut out of a shingle, and
mortar carried in an old bucket, he built a wall within the stakes,
using sticks laid along the outside and stones set in mud till the
front was closed up, except a small hole for a window and a large hole
for a door.

Now he set about finishing the inside. He gathered moss in the woods
and stuffed all the chinks in the upper parts, and those next the
ground he filled with stones and earth. Thus the shanty was finished;
but it lacked a door.

The opening was four feet high and two feet wide, so in the woodshed
at home he cut three boards, each eight inches wide and four feet
high, but he left at each end of one a long point. Doing this at home
gave him the advantage of a saw. Then with these and two shorter
boards, each two feet long and six inches wide, he sneaked out to
Glenyan, and there, with some nails and a stone for a hammer, he
fastened them together into a door. In the ground log he pecked a hole
big enough to receive one of the points and made a corresponding hole
in the under side of the top log. Then, prying up the eave log, he put
the door in place, let the eave log down again, and the door was hung.
A string to it made an outside fastening when