ht an' sweat
an' sweat in them blankets an' wonder why they're damp. Hain't you
seen your ma air the blankets every day at home? Every Injun squaw
knows that much, an' every other day at least she gives the blankets a
sun roast for three hours in the middle of the day, or, failing that,
dries them at the fire. Dry out your blankets and you won't have no
more chills."

The boys set about it at once, and that night they experienced again
the sweet, warm sleep of healthy youth.

There was another lesson they had to learn in campercraft. The
Mosquitoes were always more or less of a plague. At night they forced
the boys into the teepee, but they soon learned to smudge the insects
with a wad of green grass on the hot fire. This they would throw on
at sundown, then go outside, closing the teepee tight and eat supper
around the cooking fire. After that was over they would cautiously
open the teepee to find the grass all gone and the fire low, a dense
cloud of smoke still in the upper part, but below it clear air.
They would then brush off the Mosquitoes that had alighted on their
clothes, crawl into the lodge and close the door tight. Not a Mosquito
was left alive in it, and the smoke hanging about the smoke-vent was
enough to keep them from coming in, and so they slept in peace. Thus
they could baffle the worst pest of the woods. But there was yet
another destroyer of comfort by day, and this was the Blue-bottle
flies. There seemed more of them as time went on, and they laid masses
of yellowish eggs on anything that smelled like meat or corruption.
They buzzed about the table and got into the dishes; their dead,
drowned and mangled bodies were polluting all the food, till Caleb
remarked during one of his ever-increasing visits: "It's your own
fault. Look at all the filth ye leave scattered about."

There was no blinking the fact; for fifty feet around the teepee the
ground was strewn with scraps of paper, tins and food. To one side
was a mass of potato peelings, bones, fish-scales and filth, and
everywhere were the buzzing flies, to be plagues all day, till at
sundown the Mosquitoes relieved them and took the night shift of the
office of torment.

"I want to learn, especially if it's Injun," said Little Beaver. "What
had we best do?"

"Wall, first ye could move camp; second, ye could clean this."

As there was no other available camp ground they had no choice, and
Yan said with energy: "Boys, we got to clean this and k