a coat of charcoal paint will preserve
even a basswood fence post for a lifetime, and if that is true a hogan
protected by a coating upon the outside of paint made by stirring fine
charcoal into boiled linseed-oil until it is as thick as paint will last
longer than any of my readers will have occasion to use the hogan for a
playhouse. Erect the frame (Fig. 156) by having some boys hold the
uprights in place until they can be secured with temporary braces like
those shown running diagonally across from _B_ to _E_ and _A_ to _F_. You
may then proceed to board up the sides from the outside of the frame by
slipping the planks between the frame and the bank and then nailing from
the inside wherever you lack room upon the outside to swing your hammer.
The door-jambs _I_, _J_ and _K_, _L_ will help support the roof.

The Roof

The roof may be made of lumber, as shown by Fig. 160, or it may be made of
poles like those shown on the Wyoming Olebo (Fig. 236), or it may be made
of planks and covered with tar paper (Figs. 296, 297, 298, and 299), or it
may be shingled, using barrel staves for shingles, or covered with bits of
old tin roofing tacked over the planking--or anything, in fact, which will
keep out the water. As for looks, that will not count because the roof is
to be afterward covered with sod.

Cliff-House Roof

If you wish to make the roof as the cliff-dwellers made theirs, put your
biggest logs crosswise from _A_, _M_, _E_ to _C_, _O_, _G_ of your house
for rafters, and across the larger logs lay a lot of small poles as close
together as may be, running from the back to the front of the house. Fill
in the cracks between with moss or calk them with dry grass; on them
place a layer of brush, browse, or small sticks and over this a thick
coating of clay, hard-pan, or ordinary mud and pack it down hard by
tramping it with your feet until it becomes a smooth and tightly packed
crust; over this you can put your sod and weeds to conceal your secret.

Passageway

To make the frame for the underground hall or passageway (Fig. 156), first
nail _Q_, _S_ across the door-jambs to form the top to the doorway, after
which put in the supports _Q_, _R_ and _S_, _T_. Next build the frame _U_,
_V_, _X_, _W_ and join it to _Q_, _S_ by the two pieces _Q_, _U_ and _S_,
_V_ and put in the middle frame support marked _ZZZZ_.

The passageway should be about six feet long and the front doorway (_U_,
_V_, _X_, _W_, Figs. 156 and 157