t to invent some kind of a contraption to
kill these flying pests off by the billion. Here it is almost cold
enough to snow, and we're being eaten alive by mosquitos."

"I reckon it wouldn't do much good to invent a way of killing the
brutes," Will suggested, "as long as the swamps and pools of the
Northwest Territories are turning them out at the rate of a billion
a minute."

"I read a story about how to get rid of mosquitos the other day,"
Sandy said. "It might be a good idea to try it."

"You can always read how to do things, in the newspapers," Tommy
argued. "The only trouble is that the ideas don't work."

"This one will work," declared Sandy. "The way to kill mosquitos,"
he continued, "is to throw a great long rope up in the air. You
let it stay up in the air; that is, one end of it, and grease it
carefully with cold cream and tie a piece of raw beefsteak at the
upper end. That will attract the mosquitos. Then when you get
several millions up the rope, you cut it in two about twenty feet
from the ground and pull the lower end down."

"It'll be the foolish house for yours!" Tommy laughed. "How are
you going to throw one end of a rope up in the air and make it stay
there?"

"I didn't say how to make it stay up in the air," grinned Sandy.
"I just said you had to make it stay up in the air. Then when the
mosquitos get tired of staying up in the ambient atmosphere,
they'll come crawling down the rope and fall off where you cut it."

"I guess your dome needs repacking all right!" laughed Tommy.

"And then, when they come to the place where the rope has been cut
off, they'll take a tumble for themselves, and you stand under the
line and beat their heads off with an axe."

"Poor child!" laughed Tommy.

"If you leave it to me," George declared with a grin, "that story
about how to kill mosquitos came out of Noah's ark on crutches."

The sun was setting over the great wilderness to the west, and the
boys hastened to pile more wood on the fire. The forest was alive
with the cries of birds, and the undergrowth showed curious eyes
peering out at the intruders.

"This beats little old Chicago," cried George, bringing out a great
skillet of ham. "When we live in the city, we've got to eat in the
house and smell dishwater. When you live out doors, you've got a
dining room about a thousand miles square."

"And when you live in Chicago," Tommy continued, "you can't get
fresh fish right out of the brooks