off. I think also when they
keep on biting you you get immune to the poison, so that it doesn't
hurt so much."

"Don't they bite the half-breeds and Indians?" asked John.

"Certainly they bite them. You watch the breeds around a camp at
night. Every fellow will cover up his head with his blanket, so that
he can sleep or smother, as it happens. As for us, however, we've got
our black headnets and our long-sleeved gloves. Dope isn't much good.
No one cares much for mosquito dope in the Far North; you'll see more
of it in the States than you will in here, because they have learned
that it is more or less useless.

"Our big mosquito tent is just the same as the one we took down the
Columbia River with us--the one that the Indians cut the end out of
when we gave it to them! I've tried that tent all through Alaska in my
work, and everywhere in this part of the world, and it's the only
thing for mosquitoes. You crawl in through the little sleeve and tie
it after you get inside, and then kill the mosquitoes that have
followed you in. The windows allow you to get fresh air, and the floor
cloth sewed in keeps the mosquitoes from coming up from below. It's
the only protection in the world."

"But I saw a lot of little tents or bars down in the camp near the
river a little while ago," said Rob.

"Precisely. That's the other answer to the mosquito question--the
individual mosquito bar-tent. They are regularly made and sold in all
this northern country now, and mighty useful they are, too. As you
see, it's just a piece of canvas about six feet long and one breadth
wide, with mosquito bar sewed to the edges. You tie up each corner to
a tree or stick, and let the bar of cheese-cloth drop down around your
bed, which you make on the ground. When you lie down you tuck the edge
under your blankets, and there you are! If you don't roll about very
much you are fairly safe from mosquitoes. That, let me say, is the
typical individual remedy for mosquitoes in this country. Of course,
when we are out on railroad work, map-making and writing and the like,
we have to have something bigger and better than that. That sort of
little tent is only for the single night. No doubt we'll use them
ourselves, traveling along on the scows, because it is a good deal of
trouble to put up a big wall tent every night.

"The distances in this country are so big," he added, after a time,
explaining, "that every one travels in a hurry and spends no
unnecessa