280 BUILDING A "SHACK." 



You first find a sloping bank, out of which you cut an oblong 

 space as large as you wish the inside of the house to be : it is 

 open in front, has sloping sides, and the back is some ten feet 

 high. You then build the front of logs, making it two feet 

 lower than the back, and fill in the ends either with logs or 

 earth. The door and windows are then cut out, and a roof of 

 poles, grass, and mud is put on, and your shack is complete, 

 only requiring the floor to be stamped down to be ready for 

 use. Sometimes a chimney is made ; but in many in which I 

 have stayed the fire was lighted in one corner, and the smoke 

 found its way out by a hole in the roof. The spaces between 

 the logs are daubed with clay to keep out the cold ; and with 

 a good fire these shacks are very comfortable, when your eyes 

 get used to the smoke. 



This shack was a small and very dirty one, and contained a 

 "boss," or manager, and four boys. The food was chiefly 

 boiled beef cut up in lumps, as they had not much time for 

 hunting, and had driven most of the game away by firing at 

 everything they saw. They were a very rough set, and their 

 conversation was dreadfully monotonous, being almost entirely 

 about beef, its price in the market, and the best way to get it 

 there the whole being seasoned with very strong language. 

 There were some stories, too, of Indian atrocities, several cow- 

 boys having been killed lately, though no ranche had been 

 attacked. The Sioux will sometimes dismount to crawl up to 

 a house at night and fire into it ; but none of them have been 

 known to do so in the daytime ; and I heard here of a ranche- 

 man's wife having kept off nearly twenty Indians by using her 

 husband's repeater through the windows of the cabin, though 

 they knew her to be alone. 



