. But there is
something in what Moise has told you--don't fight mosquitoes too hard,
so that you get excited and nervous over it. Don't slap hard enough to
kill a dog--just brush them off easy. Take your trouble as easy as you
can on trail--that's good advice. This isn't feather-bed work,
exactly; but then I don't call you boys tenderfeet, exactly, either.
Now go and finish the beds up for the night before it gets too dark."

Jesse crawled into the back part of the tent and fished out three
specially made nets, each of cheese-cloth sewed to a long strip of
canvas perhaps six feet long and two and one-half feet wide. At each
corner of this canvas a cord was sewed, so that it could be tied to a
tent-pole, or to a safety-pin stuck in the top of the tent. Then the
sides, which were long and full, could be tucked in at the edges of
the bed, so that no mosquitoes could get in. Each boy had his own net
for his own bed, so that, if he was careful in getting in under the
net, he would be pretty sure of sleeping free from the mosquitoes, no
matter how bad they were. Uncle Dick had a similar net for his own
little shelter-tent. As for Moise, he had a head-net and a ragged
piece of bar which he did not use half the time, thinking it rather
beneath him to pay too much attention to the small nuisances.

"You'll better go to bed pretty soon, young mans," said Moise,
speaking to his young friends after they had finished their supper.
"If those fly bite me, he'll got sick of eating so much smoke, him.
But those fly, he like to bite little boy." And he laughed heartily,
as he saw the young companions continually brushing at their faces.

Uncle Dick drew apart from the camp at the time and went out to the
edge of the bank, looking down at the water far below.

"You can bet that's a steep climb," commented John--"two hundred feet,
I should think. And I don't see how we'll get the horses down there in
the morning."

"At least one hundred and fifty feet," assented his uncle. "But I
reckon we can get across it somehow, if the engineers can get a
railroad and trains of cars over it--and that's what they're going to
do next year. But, as I have told you, never worry until the time
comes when you're on the trail. The troubles'll come along fast
enough, perhaps, without our hurrying them up any. Take things
easy--that's what gets engineers and horses and railroads across the
Rockies."

"How long before we get to the Rockies, Uncle Dick?"