Part 8 (1/2)

”Well,” answered Yan, promptly a.s.suming the leaders.h.i.+p and rejoicing in his ability to speak as an authority, ”the Plains Injuns make their teepees of skins, but the wood Injuns generally use Birch bark.”

”Well, I bet you can't find skins or Birch bark enough in this woods to make a teepee big enough for a Chipmunk to chaw nuts in.”

”We can use Elm bark.”

”That's a heap easier,” replied Sam, ”if it'll answer, coz we cut a lot o' Elm logs last winter and the bark'll be about willin' to peel now. But first let's plan it out.”

This was a good move, one Yan would have overlooked. He would probably have got a lot of material together and made the plan afterward, but Sam had been taught to go about his work with method.

So Yan sketched on a smooth log his remembrance of an Indian teepee.

”It seems to me it was about this shape, with the poles sticking up like that, a hole for the smoke here and another for the door there.”

”Sounds like you hain't never seen one,” remarked Sam, with more point than politeness, ”but we kin try it. Now 'bout how big?”

Eight feet high and eight feet across was decided to be about right.

Four poles, each ten feet long, were cut in a few minutes, Yan carrying them to a smooth place above the creek as fast as Sam cut them.

”Now, what shall we tie them with?” said Yan.

”You mean for rope?”

”Yes, only we must get everything in the woods; real rope ain't allowed.”

”I kin fix that,” said Sam; ”when Da double-staked the orchard fence, he lashed every pair of stakes at the top with Willow withes.”

”That's so--I quite forgot,” said Yan. In a few minutes they were at work trying to tie the four poles together with slippery stiff Willows, but it was no easy matter. They had to be perfectly tight or they would slip and fall in a heap each time they were raised, and it seemed at length that the boys would be forced to the impropriety of using hay wire, when they heard a low grunt, and turning, saw William Raften standing with his hands behind him as though he had watched them for hours.

The boys were no little startled. Raften had a knack of turning up at any point when something was going on, taking in the situation fully, and then, if he disapproved, of expressing himself in a few words of blistering mockery delivered in a rich Irish brogue. Just what view he would take of their pastime the boys had no idea, but awaited with uneasiness. If they had been wasting time when they should have been working there is no question but that they would have been sent with contumely to more profitable pursuits, but this was within their rightful play hours, and Raften, after regarding them with a searching look, said slowly: ”Bhoys!” (Sam felt easier; his father would have said ”_Bhise_” if really angry.) ”Fhat's the good o' wastin' yer time” (Yan's heart sank) ”wid Willow withes fur a job like that? They can't be made to howld. Whoi don't ye git some hay woire or coord at the barrun?”

The boys were greatly relieved, but still this friendly overture might be merely a feint to open the way for a home thrust. Sam was silent.

So Yan said, presently, ”We ain't allowed to use anything but what the Indians had or could get in the woods.”

”An' who don't allow yez?”

”The rules.”

”Oh,” said William, with some amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Oi see! Hyar.”

He went into the woods looking this way and that, and presently stopped at a lot of low shrubs.

”Do ye know what this is, Yan?”

”No, sir.”

”Le's see if yer man enough to break it aff.”

Yan tried. The wood was brittle enough, but the bark, thin, smooth and pliant, was as tough as leather, and even a narrow strip defied his strength.

”That's Litherwood,” said Raften. ”That's what the Injuns used; that's what we used ourselves in the airly days of this yer settlement.”