CHAPTER VIII.
COLONEL SNOW'S RANCH.
At an early hour that morning the journey was resumed and their progressup stream continued uninterruptedly until about the middle of theforenoon, when Swiftwater stepped ashore and began to search along theright bank for landmarks. Suddenly, he stepped out of the woods, and heldup his hand and the Indians in the first boat began to turn the craft'shead in toward the shore.
"Here we are," cried the miner, pointing to a large board nailed acrosstwo small trees, under which a "cairn" or pile of boulders had beenerected. "This is one of the corners of the Colonel's property."
The boats were quickly fastened and the boys tumbled up the bank with somecuriosity to investigate the site of what was for some weeks to be a hometo them.
"The Colonel told me," said Rand "that he had bought from the CanadianGovernment about two thousand acres of the best virgin timber of theBritish Columbia section, and this must be some of it."
The site of their camp certainly bore out the owner's anticipations of thevalue of his purchase. For miles in every direction stretched a solidsubstantial growth of timber--hemlock, spruce, fir, poplar and birch,towering to hundreds of feet into the air, and many bolls five and sixfeet through at the butt. There was very little undergrowth and heavy turfextended in the long aisles of the forest in every direction.
Within a very short time the boats had been permanently fastened to thebanks by heavy ropes and strong stakes cut in the small timber, and allhands began to unload the camp equipage. From the bottom of one end of thecraft where the camp stuff and supplies had been piled, rough boards whichSwiftwater referred to as "sawed stuff," and which had been carried as asort of false bottom to the boats, were brought out and made into a sortof platform roughly nailed together and placed on a foundation of smallboulders gathered from the bed of the creek which raised it a few inchesfrom the ground. On this a heavy army tent, which had been brought fromWhite Horse, was erected by the Scouts themselves and stoutly pegged andguyed in the most approved fashion. A series of flies divided the interiorinto rooms, and in these the camp bedsteads were placed. This was to bethe permanent abiding place of the boys and the miner while the work ofpreparing the sawmill camp for the next winter's work was going on.
The Indians were each given a dog tent and two of the tarpaulins wereturned over to them, and at some little distance away they soon rigged upsomething between a hut and a burrow of stones, sods, and brush, about tenfeet square, the bottom of which they filled two feet deep with spruce andfir boughs. Over all they drew the tarpaulins and pegged them down. Theboys watched curiously the gathering of the fir and spruce sprigs.
"Makes the finest spring bed in the world," said Jim. "I've slept on ithundreds of nights, and there's no mattress made that equals it. We'llmake up some for ourselves within a few days."
Preparations for the night having been made, and a fireplace dug out ofthe bank of the creek near the water's edge, and walled up with stones tosome distance above the bank so that a perceptible draft was obtained, oneof the boys was directed to bring from the stores a bright new copperkettle with a porcelain lining and a tight cover. Three flat stones wereplaced together and formed a support for the pot.
"Pepper," said Swiftwater, "from this day to the time we go out, you areto be captain of the Kettle. You are to see that it is kept clean andfilled with clear water from the creek at least once a day; that the wateris boiled and that these water jugs are kept filled and corked. I want toask the rest of you boys to drink, for a time at least, nothing but thewater that our friend Pepper turns out; none from the creek. A man'shealth in a new country depends a good deal on how the water hits him, anduntil you are acclimated it is the safest thing." The Scouts readilypromised to comply with the miner's request, and Pepper feeling that thehealth of the camp was somehow in his charge felt not a little elated. Heissued orders at once for a supply of firewood, agreeing to carry thewater himself, which he did, filling the kettle which held about tengallons. He put on so many small airs while the boys were bringing in thefirewood and arranging it beneath the kettle that they began to dub him"Health Officer," "Doctor," and poke fun at him in several ways. FinallyDick came up and inspected the whole arrangement as if he had never seenit before, and said:
"Hello, Grandma, makin' apple-butter or quince preserves?"
Pepper turned red but went on poking the fire. A minute or two laterGerald strolled by with:
"Auntie, can't I have one of the doughnuts, now?"
Still Pepper struggled to preserve his temper and gave his whole dignifiedattention to his new duties until:
"Mamma, how long fo' dat hog and hominy fit to eat?" and Rand dodged astick of firewood, as the infuriated Captain of the Kettle turned back tothe simmering pot. He was undisturbed for nearly an hour when Don strolledup with an ostentatiously small armful of sticks and stayed only longenough to ask:
"Seems to me that I smell braw parritch; or is it kail-brose ye would besteaming there, gilly?"
Satisfied that a small conspiracy had been hatched against him the ruffledPepper bided his time. Suddenly, Jack came hurriedly toward him holdinghis nose and pushing him away snatched off the cover of the kettle andyelled dramatically:
"I told you so; I told you so; he can't even cook water; and now it's allburned black."
The shout of laughter that went up was the last straw for the enragedPepper and jumping on his brother the two rolled over on the grasstogether in one of those friendly tussles that had been frequent incidentsof their boyhood and that always served to bring Pepper's ruffled temperdown to normal temperature. Thereafter Pepper insisted in supplying hisown firewood and running the kettle without help, and resented anyinterference with his duties.
The days that followed were busy, but uneventful. Swiftwater kept the campbusy at something all the time and not many days passed before the campbegan to take on a look of permanency. He set up first what he called asaw-pit, two big "horses," each made by driving fir poles into the groundand crossing them and laying other sapling across these. The two horseswere about seven feet high and twelve feet apart. From one to the other ofthese ran a sixteen foot plank. Spruce trees of medium size were then cutdown, divided into sixteen foot lengths, and typo squared with an ax.These timbers were then raised to the top of the horses, and, while oneIndian mounted the log, the other stood underneath and with a long gangsaw "ripped" the timber into deals or boards, thick plank or scantling aswas needed for camp use. As this lumber began to pile up, he set the otherIndians at work clearing a place among the heavier trees, but not far fromthe creek, for a sod house. It was to be some twenty feet square and wasto house Colonel Snow's lumbering gangs when they came in the followingwinter.
"'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 belowzero, canvas is no sort of shelter. A log house is better but it is almostimpossible to make the caulking of that weather-proof.
"Sod houses are the invention of the pioneer of the plains whose chiefrecreation 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 againstfire, flood, lightning and wind and is as cosy as a cave; besides, ittakes a shorter time to build," and with this the miner led the boys, withthe exception of Gerald, who was to keep camp and oversee the four Indiansleft there, 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 abroad stretch of elevated meadow intervened. Early as it was, the shortgrass was green and luxuriant, and what surprised the boys more than anything else was the number, variety and size of the wild flowers.
All hands had been supplied with long handled spades with sharp edges, andas Swiftwater marked the turf out in strips five and ten feet long by twofeet wide, the boys quickly cut it out,
while the Indians with a handbarrow carried and loaded it onto the boat. It was cut to the bottoms ofthe grass roots and was found to be of unusual thickness and tenacity, theten foot lengths folding up like matting without breaking.
The miner told the boys that its condition was due largely to theshortness of the seasons; for while the grass grew with remarkablerapidity, the underlying roots decayed much more slowly than in lowerlatitudes, and in time made the turf a tough mass of twisted roots that itwas almost an impossibility to separate. Hence it was much better fortheir purpose.
They spent the greater part of the day at the work, having brought foodand water with them, and when night came the boat was loaded as deeply aswas safe for her draught. She dropped slowly down the stream directed bythe Indians and was soon tied at her old moorings.
During the day, what Swiftwater called "the hold," had been excavated bythe Indians to a depth of about eighteen inches over the entire site ofthe proposed house, and this had been filled in as solidly as possiblewith small boulders from the creek. The crevices between the stones hadbeen filled with creek sand and the whole rammed hard. On this a solidplatform of two-inch planks had been laid by the sawyers and at intervalsof three feet long, thin stakes, sharpened at the top, had been drivendeeply into the ground just at the ends of the excavation. Thus all hadbeen 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 thedetails of a sod house in case he should ever want to erect one himself,was wandering around the newly laid foundation, when suddenly there cameto his ear a muffled buzzing much like the drone of a distant grasshopper."This sounds like real summer," said Jack to himself, instinctivelylooking around for the insect. As he approached one corner of thefoundation, the sound increased in strength, and less resembled thegrasshopper than something like the shaking of a bag of marbles. One ofthe Indians was approaching the structure and as the sound caught his earhe broke into a run with a deep guttural exclamation, at the same timemotioning to Jack to keep away from the foundation.
"Snake," he said. "Mooch bad. Killum."
He picked up a stake lying beside the platform and began to poke aroundbeneath it. As he reached forward to push the stake underneath, somethingstruck like a flash at the back of his hand, and at the same moment alarge rattlesnake uncoiled and slid from underneath the boards out intothe short grass. With a blow of the stake the Indian broke the snake'sback and then began to suck the two punctures on his knuckle, at the sametime keeping the hand tightly closed and the skin drawn tight.
For a moment Jack was horrified. Then the instincts of the Scouts and hisquickly working brain ran rapidly over the instructions of "first aid."With a shout that brought the other boys and Swiftwater on the run he drewfrom his pocket a small cord, doubled it into a slipnoose and placing iton the Indian's wrist drew it so tight as to cut off the circulation. Atthe same time he called to Rand to bring the medicine case. The miner, assoon as he comprehended what the trouble was, also disappeared in thedirection of the tent. When Rand returned he had in his hand a solution ofpermanganate of potash and a vial of strong ammonia. With each of these hesaturated the wound with some difficulty, however, as the aborigineinsisted for a time in keeping his lips to the wound as his own theory offirst aid. The hand and wrist had now swollen so much that the cord hadpractically disappeared in the flesh and the Indian was evidentlysuffering much pain. At this moment Swiftwater appeared with a smallgallon demijohn, from which he poured for the Indian a large tin cup fullof neat whisky. The red man swallowed it without a quiver and the minerpoured out another of similar size which the Indian also drank.
"That'll fix him," said Jim, "but I'm very glad you thought of that cordJack or we'd have been an Indian short. Those drugs you have willneutralize the poison and I don't know but they would have beensufficient, but I'm takin' no chances. This" (indicating the demijohn),"is the old reliable snakebite cure, discovered by Columbus when hediscovered the rattlesnake over here and my mind naturally reverted to itat the first jump. The worst of it is that the Injun won't be of much usefor a couple of days and I'm afraid all the other Siwashes will quit workand go to huntin' rattlesnakes."
The work of building the sod house began soon after the morning meal, andby night had made substantial progress. One of the side walls was builthigher than the other, and a roof of rough boards was laid on top of thickplanks which formed the top course of the walls. On this roof was laid acourse of sod, the grass of which began in a few days to grow lustily.
"'Taint everywhere," said Swiftwater, with a smile, "that a man can havehis lawn on the roof of his house."