The Boy Scouts on the Yukon

by Ralph Victor

The sod house had been practically finished by the Indians before they deserted, the only thing remaining to be done consisting of the hanging of a pair of stout double doors on the casings that had been let into the sod as the walls went up, the finishing of the windows and the erection of a chimney for the big fireplace that had been built into the house at one end.

The doors had nothing artistic or ornate about them, and in half a day were constructed of rough lumber and hung on strong hinges from among the hardware in stock. Instead of glass for the windows, which hard freezing of the sod house and settling of the walls might have a tendency to shatter, double sheets of mica, such as is used in the flexible tops of automobiles, were set in and plastered with clay which was burnt to the hardness and consistency of brick by a plumber’s flash lamp sending out the hot flame of burning gasoline in the hands of Swiftwater.

The construction of the chimney was a novel experience for the boys, who knew little of the expedients that pioneers far from stone and lime were compelled to resort 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 to the boys small vials of a swarthy looking mixture compounded of oil of cedar, oil of tar and pennyroyal. With this they bathed their faces and hands frequently, which had the effect of discouraging the pests and greatly reducing their attacks. The mixture entered the pores of the skin, however, and it was not many days before everyone of the Scouts was as tawny colored as the Siwashes who had left them.

“You’re not the only Injun in camp, now,” said Jack, addressing Don, who had been adopted into a tribe of Crees in the Canadian Rockies. “If this Patrol should step into an Indian village now we’d be adopted offhand on our complexions alone.”