"Say, Dutchy, are you killed?" cried Bill, breathlessly.
"Killed, nothing," he replied, with scorn. "I suppose you fellows think I had a fall. Well, I didn't."
"Oh, go on. I came down that way on purpose. There was no use in picking my way down like a 'fraid cat, when I could just as well take a smooth and easy toboggan slide on the bushes all the way down."
Smooth and easy toboggan slide! Well, you should have seen the hillside. The course was well defined by the torn and uprooted shrubs and the pile of branches and vines at Dutchy's feet. Whether the hare-brained Dutchy really imagined he could glide easily down on the shrubbery, his frantic movements on the way certainly belied his story, and when, the next day, we proposed that he repeat the trick, somehow he didn't seem to be very enthusiastic on the subject.
[Illustration: Wichita Indians Building a Straw Hut.]
[Illustration: Fig. 133. The Jacob's Ladder.]
It was up this fissure that we decided to haul materials for our tree hut. Our first task was to build steps and ladders in the steepest parts. We had no tool for cutting out niches in the rock, but wherever natural depressions were formed we wedged in sticks of wood between the side walls to serve as ladder rungs. If no such niches appeared for considerable height, we would stretch a rope ladder to the next fixed rung. In most places the natural formation of the rock was such as to afford sufficient footing.
The rope ladders were made of two parallel side straps, tightly stretched between the fixed sticks, and then at intervals of fifteen inches we inserted the ends of the ladder rung between the strands of the rope. Below and above each rung the rope was bound with cord. The rungs were notched at the ends to prevent them from slipping out.
After providing a means for scaling the cliff (we called it the Jacob's Ladder), we were still confronted with the problem how to cart our building materials to the top. It was a very hard task and you couldn't have hired us to do it under any other circumstances. First, Bill planned out on paper just how the house was to be built, and we cut all the pieces to the right size so as not to carry up any superfluous matter. When all was ready the boards and sticks were loaded on the scow, and ferried over to the cliff. Then we carried them on our backs, three or four at a time, up the slanting hillside to the first ledge. From there up, owing to the steepness of the ascent, we had to employ different tactics.