he side
bars; if you have nails, of course, you can nail these together, but these
plans are made on the assumption that you have no nails for that purpose,
which will probably be true if you have been long in the woods.

Fig. 63. Fig. 64. Fig. 65.

[Illustration: A simple stilt camp.]

XIII

THE BOG KEN

KEN is a name now almost obsolete but the bog ken is a house built on
stilts where the ground is marshy, damp, and unfit to sleep upon. As you
will see by the diagram (Fig. 66), the house is built upon a platform
similar to the one last described; in this instance, however, the shelter
itself is formed by a series of arches similar to the Iroquois (Fig. 41).
The uprights on the two sides have their ends bent over and lashed
together, forming arches for the roof. Over the arches are lashed
horizontal poles the same as those described in the construction of the
Iroquois lodge. Fig. 67 shows one way to prevent "varmints" of any kind
from scaling the supporting poles and creeping into your camp.

The protection consists of a tin pan with a hole in the bottom slid over
the supporting poles. Fig. 66 shows how to lash the thatching on to the
poles and Fig. 68 shows how to spring the sticks in place for a railing
around your front porch or balcony.

The floor to this bog ken is a little more elaborate than that of the last
described camp because the poles have all been halved before laying them
for the floor. These are supposed to be afterwards covered with browse,
hay, or rushes and the roof shingled with bark or thatched.

Thatching

Soak your straw or hay well in water and smooth it out flat and regular.
The steeper the roofs the longer the thatch will last. In this bog ken our
roof happens to be a rounded one, an arched roof; but it is sheltering a
temporary house and the thatch will last as long as the shack. While the
real pioneer uses whatever material he finds at hand, it does no harm for
him to know that to make a really good thatch one should use only straw
which is fully ripe and has been thrashed clean with an old-fashioned
flail. The straw must be clear of all seed or grain and kept straight, not
mussed up, crumpled, and broken. If any grain is left in the straw it will
attract field-mice, birds, domestic mice and rats, domestic turkeys and
chickens, and these creatures in burrowing and scratching for food will
play havoc with the roof.

Fig. 66. Fig. 67. Fig. 68. Fig. 69.

[Illustration: D