rt to. It is true there were many boulders in the creek,
but skilled work was necessary to lay them, and the miner resorted to an
easier method.

A considerable amount of lumber sawed by the Indians remained, and this
was split up into stakes about two inches square. These were driven into
the walls of the house alongside of the fireplace and other stakes laid
across them at their outer ends.

As fast as this structure became a foot high it was plastered inside and
out with clay which was burnt hard with the blow lamp. Above the opening
in the fireplace the chimney was continued by putting of clay on the sod
wall and burning it in, making the chimney smaller for better draft.

The top of the chimney above the house was provided by constructing a
cratelike affair by fastening smaller pieces to four stout stakes and
setting these stakes down into the chimney and plastering the whole inside
and out with clay. After a hot fire had been kept up in the fireplace for
twenty-four hours to thoroughly bake the clay Swiftwater announced that
the sod house was finished.

This work was not accomplished without some inconvenience, and even
suffering to the boys as yet scarcely inured to hard labor. Blistered
hands and aching backs were the daily portion, and it was only by working
them in shifts of three that the miner was able to gradually break them
in. But pure air and good food worked wonders, and in a few days they
hardly felt the effects of a day's labor except in increased appetites and
sound sleep. As the days went on, however, the small pests of wood and
water that come with the summer increased in number, and almost drove the
boys frantic. The mosquito seemed to be always present day and night, and
despite the use of nettings and cheesecloth it seemed almost impossible to
keep them out of the tent. A worse plague if possible was the "black fly,"
a minute midge that bored deep into the skin and brought the blood with
every bite. There was also in lesser numbers a large striped fly that had
a habit of hanging on the spruces and birches in clusters, but came at
once to welcome the white man as an old friend.

His bite was like the cut of a knife. Swiftwater said he had never been
able to discover what this fly lived on when the white man was not there,
for it is matter of record that it would not touch an Indian or an
Eskimo.

As it became necessary to protect one's self against these tiny marauders,
Swiftwater dealt out