st, _We might yet make our fortune in the Desert_!

"Of course, it was a settled point--we resolved to remain.

"The first thing to be done, then, was to provide ourselves with a
house. It would be a `log-cabin,' of course; and putting up a log-cabin
was a mere bagatelle to Cudjo. During our residence in Virginia, he had
built two or three on my farm; and no man knew better than he how to do
the thing. No man knew better than he how to shape the logs, notch
them, and lay them firmly in their beds--no man knew better how to split
the `clap-boards,' lay them on the rafters, and bind them fast, without
even a single nail--no man knew how to `chink' the walls, clay the
chimney, and hang the door of a log-cabin better than Cudjo. No. I
will answer for that--Cudjo could construct a log-cabin as well as the
most renowned architect in the world.

"There was plenty of the right kind of timber at hand--plenty of
tulip-trees with their tall straight trunks rising to the height of
fifty feet without a branch; and for the next two days the axe of Cudjo
could be heard with its constant `check--check,' while every now and
then the crash of a falling tree woke the echoes of the valley. While
Cudjo was felling the timber and cutting it into logs of a proper
length, none of the rest of us were idle. In cooking our meals,
scouring the vessels, and looking after the children, Mary found
sufficient employment; while Frank, Harry, and I, with the help of our
horse Pompo, were able to drag the logs forward to the spot where we had
designed to put up the cabin.

"On the third day, Cudjo notched the logs, and on the fourth we raised
the walls up to the square. On the fifth, we set up the gables and
rafters, which, you know, is done by shortening the gable-logs
successively, as you go upward, and tying each pair of them by a pair of
rafters notched into them, at the ends, precisely as the wall-logs
below. A ridge-pole completed the frame, and that was laid by the
evening of the fifth day.

"Upon the sixth day, Cudjo went to work upon a large oak which he had
felled and cut into lengths of about four feet each, at the beginning of
our operations. It was now somewhat dry, so as to split easily; and
with his axe and a set of wedges he attacked it. By sunset, he had a
pile of clap-boards beside him as large as a wagon--quite enough to
`shingle' the roof of our house. During that day, I employed myself in
tempering the clay for chink