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.