here, to the boats, one of which the other two Indians had unmoored,
and when all were aboard, began to pole upstream.

About a half mile above the camp the woods receded from the creek and a
broad stretch of elevated meadow intervened. Early as it was, the short
grass was green and luxuriant, and what surprised the boys more than any
thing else was the number, variety and size of the wild flowers.

All hands had been supplied with long handled spades with sharp edges, and
as Swiftwater marked the turf out in strips five and ten feet long by two
feet wide, the boys quickly cut it out, while the Indians with a hand
barrow carried and loaded it onto the boat. It was cut to the bottoms of
the grass roots and was found to be of unusual thickness and tenacity, the
ten foot lengths folding up like matting without breaking.

The miner told the boys that its condition was due largely to the
shortness of the seasons; for while the grass grew with remarkable
rapidity, the underlying roots decayed much more slowly than in lower
latitudes, and in time made the turf a tough mass of twisted roots that it
was almost an impossibility to separate. Hence it was much better for
their purpose.

They spent the greater part of the day at the work, having brought food
and water with them, and when night came the boat was loaded as deeply as
was safe for her draught. She dropped slowly down the stream directed by
the Indians and was soon tied at her old moorings.

During the day, what Swiftwater called "the hold," had been excavated by
the Indians to a depth of about eighteen inches over the entire site of
the proposed house, and this had been filled in as solidly as possible
with small boulders from the creek. The crevices between the stones had
been filled with creek sand and the whole rammed hard. On this a solid
platform of two-inch planks had been laid by the sawyers and at intervals
of three feet long, thin stakes, sharpened at the top, had been driven
deeply into the ground just at the ends of the excavation. Thus all had
been prepared for the erection of the sod walls the next day.

Early the next morning Jack, who had determined to keep an eye on all the
details of a sod house in case he should ever want to erect one himself,
was wandering around the newly laid foundation, when suddenly there came
to his ear a muffled buzzing much like the drone of a distant grasshopper.
"This sounds like real summer," said Jack to himself, instin