COLONEL SNOW'S RANCH.
At an early hour that morning the journey was resumed and their progress
up stream continued uninterruptedly until about the middle of the
forenoon, when Swiftwater stepped ashore and began to search along the
right bank for landmarks. Suddenly, he stepped out of the woods, and held
up his hand and the Indians in the first boat began to turn the craft's
head in toward the shore.
"Here we are," cried the miner, pointing to a large board nailed across
two small trees, under which a "cairn" or pile of boulders had been
erected. "This is one of the corners of the Colonel's property."
The boats were quickly fastened and the boys tumbled up the bank with some
curiosity to investigate the site of what was for some weeks to be a home
to them.
"The Colonel told me," said Rand "that he had bought from the Canadian
Government about two thousand acres of the best virgin timber of the
British Columbia section, and this must be some of it."
The site of their camp certainly bore out the owner's anticipations of the
value of his purchase. For miles in every direction stretched a solid
substantial growth of timber--hemlock, spruce, fir, poplar and birch,
towering to hundreds of feet into the air, and many bolls five and six
feet through at the butt. There was very little undergrowth and heavy turf
extended in the long aisles of the forest in every direction.
Within a very short time the boats had been permanently fastened to the
banks by heavy ropes and strong stakes cut in the small timber, and all
hands began to unload the camp equipage. From the bottom of one end of the
craft where the camp stuff and supplies had been piled, rough boards which
Swiftwater referred to as "sawed stuff," and which had been carried as a
sort of false bottom to the boats, were brought out and made into a sort
of platform roughly nailed together and placed on a foundation of small
boulders gathered from the bed of the creek which raised it a few inches
from the ground. On this a heavy army tent, which had been brought from
White Horse, was erected by the Scouts themselves and stoutly pegged and
guyed in the most approved fashion. A series of flies divided the interior
into rooms, and in these the camp bedsteads were placed. This was to be
the permanent abiding place of the boys and the miner while the work of
preparing 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 were
turned over to them, and at some little distance away they soon rigged up
something between a hut and a burrow of stones, sods, and brush, about ten
feet square, the bottom of which they filled two feet deep with spruce and
fir boughs. Over all they drew the tarpaulins and pegged them down. The
boys watched curiously the gathering of the fir and spruce sprigs.
"Makes the finest spring bed in the world," said Jim. "I've slept on it
hundreds of nights, and there's no mattress made that equals it. We'll
make up some for ourselves within a few days."
Preparations for the night having been made, and a fireplace dug out of
the bank of the creek near the water's edge, and walled up with stones to
some distance above the bank so that a perceptible draft was obtained, one
of the boys was directed to bring from the stores a bright new copper
kettle with a porcelain lining and a tight cover. Three flat stones were
placed together and formed a support for the pot.
"Pepper," said Swiftwater, "from this day to the time we go out, you are
to be captain of the Kettle. You are to see that it is kept clean and
filled with clear water from the creek at least once a day; that the water
is boiled and that these water jugs are kept filled and corked. I want to
ask the rest of you boys to drink, for a time at least, nothing but the
water that our friend Pepper turns out; none from the creek. A man's
health in a new country depends a good deal on how the water hits him, and
until you are acclimated it is the safest thing." The Scouts readily
promised to comply with the miner's request, and Pepper feeling that the
health of the camp was somehow in his charge felt not a little elated. He
issued orders at once for a supply of firewood, agreeing to carry the
water himself, which he did, filling the kettle which held about ten
gallons. He put on so many small airs while the boys were bringing in the
firewood and arranging it beneath the kettle that they began to dub him
"Health Officer," "Doctor," and poke fun at him in several ways. Finally
Dick came up and inspected the whole arrangement as if he had never seen
it before, and said:
"Hello, Grandma, makin' apple-butter or quince preserves?"
Pepper turned red but went on poking the fire. A minute or two later
Gerald strolled by with:
"Auntie, can't I have one of the doughnuts, now?"
Still Pepper struggled to preserve his temper and gave his whole dignified
attention to his new duties until:
"Mamma, how long fo' dat hog and hominy fit to eat?" and Rand dodged a
stick of firewood, as the infuriated Captain of the Kettle turned back to
the simmering pot. He was undisturbed for nearly an hour when Don strolled
up with an ostentatiously small armful of sticks and stayed only long
enough to ask:
"Seems to me that I smell braw parritch; or is it kail-brose ye would be
steaming there, gilly?"
Satisfied that a small conspiracy had been hatched against him the ruffled
Pepper bided his time. Suddenly, Jack came hurriedly toward him holding
his nose and pushing him away snatched off the cover of the kettle and
yelled 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 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 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, instinctively
looking around for the insect. As he approached one corner of the
foundation, the sound increased in strength, and less resembled the
grasshopper than something like the shaking of a bag of marbles. One of
the Indians was approaching the structure and as the sound caught his ear
he broke into a run with a deep guttural exclamation, at the same time
motioning 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 around
beneath it. As he reached forward to push the stake underneath, something
struck like a flash at the back of his hand, and at the same moment a
large rattlesnake uncoiled and slid from underneath the boards out into
the short grass. With a blow of the stake the Indian broke the snake's
back and then began to suck the two punctures on his knuckle, at the same
time keeping the hand tightly closed and the skin drawn tight.
For a moment Jack was horrified. Then the instincts of the Scouts and his
quickly working brain ran rapidly over the instructions of "first aid."
With a shout that brought the other boys and Swiftwater on the run he drew
from his pocket a small cord, doubled it into a slipnoose and placing it
on the Indian's wrist drew it so tight as to cut off the circulation. At
the same time he called to Rand to bring the medicine case. The miner, as
soon as he comprehended what the trouble was, also disappeared in the
direction of the tent. When Rand returned he had in his hand a solution of
permanganate of potash and a vial of strong ammonia. With each of these he
saturated the wound with some difficulty, however, as the aborigine
insisted for a time in keeping his lips to the wound as his own theory of
first aid. The hand and wrist had now swollen so much that the cord had
practically disappeared in the flesh and the Indian was evidently
suffering much pain. At this moment Swiftwater appeared with a small
gallon demijohn, from which he poured for the Indian a large tin cup full
of neat whisky. The red man swallowed it without a quiver and the miner
poured 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 cord
Jack or we'd have been an Indian short. Those drugs you have will
neutralize the poison and I don't know but they would have been
sufficient, but I'm takin' no chances. This" (indicating the demijohn),
"is the old reliable snakebite cure, discovered by Columbus when he
discovered the rattlesnake over here and my mind naturally reverted to it
at the first jump. The worst of it is that the Injun won't be of much use
for a couple of days and I'm afraid all the other Siwashes will quit work
and go to huntin' rattlesnakes."
The work of building the sod house began soon after the morning meal, and
by night had made substantial progress. One of the side walls was built
higher than the other, and a roof of rough boards was laid on top of thick
planks which formed the top course of the walls. On this roof was laid a
course 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 have
his lawn on the roof of his house."