Joe grinned as he seized an axe to drive it into the thick bark of the tree.
“There’s a dead tree for you, Curlie,” said the miner. “Get it down and cut it into wood for the Yukon stove.”
Turning to the camp kit, he was soon at work straightening out the tent, which had collected dampness from the previous night and was frozen stiff in spots.
He spread it over their tent-site and set it up as best he could. Then, crawling inside, he set up the sheet-iron stove and started a fire. As the tent, warmed by the fire, began to soften, he gradually drew it into its accustomed shape.
In the meantime each boy had felled his tree and had trimmed it up.
“Now, Joe,” said the veteran camper, “cut your tree into lengths to go across each side of our tent and chop the first six inches of each end half off as if you were building a log house.”
When this had been accomplished, he assisted Joe in placing the poles in a square about the tent. He next drew the lower edges of the tent out over the logs and packed snow over them to the depth of several inches. After that he spread a square of canvas as a floor to the tent.
“There,” he sighed at last; “won’t any air get into our tent to-night. Next thing is a lot of spruce boughs. Cut ’em right off and drag ’em inside.”
When the tent was packed half full of boughs, he took out a large clasp knife and began to clip off the small twigs on the branches. The boys followed his example. In a few moments the shorn branches were all outside the tent and the canvas floor was buried ten inches deep with spruce needles and fine twigs.
“Now,” said the miner, “the two of you hold up the stove while I spread a canvas over the whole of it and our camp is made.”