The sun was setting on the lads' first day in camp as the boys rested from their labor of dragging in great quantities of both dry and green wood. Their tents were of double canvas, specially prepared for cold weather, and their bedding and suits had constituted an important part of their baggage.
Almost the entire fronts of the tents were composed of fine, strong silk mesh-cloth. The faces of the boys were well anointed with grease, and masks of mesh-cloth hung about the tents ready for use.
Mosquitos and an insect known as the "bull-dog" had driven many a trapper and hunter out of the swampy regions around Hudson Bay. During the summer it is almost impossible to live in the swamps of that country at all. By protecting their tents and faces, and keeping great "smudges" going, the boys hoped to be able to live in comparative comfort during their stay in that section.
"Look here, Will," Tommy said, as he laid down a great armful of dry wood, "some one ought to invent some kind of a contraption to kill these flying pests off by the billion. Here it is almost cold enough to snow, and we're being eaten alive by mosquitos."
"I reckon it wouldn't do much good to invent a way of killing the brutes," Will suggested, "as long as the swamps and pools of the Northwest Territories are turning them out at the rate of a billion a minute."
"I read a story about how to get rid of mosquitos the other day,"
Sandy said. "It might be a good idea to try it."
"You can always read how to do things, in the newspapers," Tommy argued. "The only trouble is that the ideas don't work."
"This one will work," declared Sandy. "The way to kill mosquitos," he continued, "is to throw a great long rope up in the air. You let it stay up in the air; that is, one end of it, and grease it carefully with cold cream and tie a piece of raw beefsteak at the upper end. That will attract the mosquitos. Then when you get several millions up the rope, you cut it in two about twenty feet from the ground and pull the lower end down."
"It'll be the foolish house for yours!" Tommy laughed. "How are you going to throw one end of a rope up in the air and make it stay there?"
"I didn't say how to make it stay up in the air," grinned Sandy. "I just said you had to make it stay up in the air. Then when the mosquitos get tired of staying up in the ambient atmosphere, they'll come crawling down the rope and fall off where you cut it."