ed dramatically:

"I told you so; I told you so; he can't even cook water; and now it's all
burned black."

The shout of laughter that went up was the last straw for the enraged
Pepper and jumping on his brother the two rolled over on the grass
together in one of those friendly tussles that had been frequent incidents
of their boyhood and that always served to bring Pepper's ruffled temper
down to normal temperature. Thereafter Pepper insisted in supplying his
own firewood and running the kettle without help, and resented any
interference with his duties.

The days that followed were busy, but uneventful. Swiftwater kept the camp
busy at something all the time and not many days passed before the camp
began to take on a look of permanency. He set up first what he called a
saw-pit, two big "horses," each made by driving fir poles into the ground
and crossing them and laying other sapling across these. The two horses
were about seven feet high and twelve feet apart. From one to the other of
these ran a sixteen foot plank. Spruce trees of medium size were then cut
down, divided into sixteen foot lengths, and typo squared with an ax.
These timbers were then raised to the top of the horses, and, while one
Indian mounted the log, the other stood underneath and with a long gang
saw "ripped" the timber into deals or boards, thick plank or scantling as
was needed for camp use. As this lumber began to pile up, he set the other
Indians at work clearing a place among the heavier trees, but not far from
the creek, for a sod house. It was to be some twenty feet square and was
to house Colonel Snow's lumbering gangs when they came in the following
winter.

"'Tenting on the old camp ground,' 's good enough, up here in the summer,"
he said to the boys, "but with the mercury loafing around sixty below
zero, canvas is no sort of shelter. A log house is better but it is almost
impossible to make the caulking of that weather-proof.

"Sod houses are the invention of the pioneer of the plains whose chief
recreation was going twenty miles to look at a tree four inches through.
Of course if we had the time we could saw out lumber enough to make a
'camp' that would be weather proof, but the sod house is insured against
fire, flood, lightning and wind and is as cosy as a cave; besides, it
takes a shorter time to build," and with this the miner led the boys, with
the exception of Gerald, who was to keep camp and oversee the four Indians
left t