“Tie them?  With what?”

“‘Rawhide rope,’ he said, but he also said ‘Make the cover of skins.’  I’m afraid we shall have to use common rope for the present,” and Yan looked a little ashamed of the admission.

“I reckoned so,” drawled Sam, “and so I put a coil of quarter-inch in the cover, but I didn’t dare to tell you that up at the barn.”

The tripod was firmly lashed with the rope and set up.  Nine poles were duly leaned around in a twelve-foot circle, for a teepee twelve feet high usually has a twelve-foot base.  A final lashing of the ropes held these, and the last pole was then put up opposite to the door, with the teepee cover tied to it at the point between the flaps.  The ends of the two smoke-poles carried the cover round.  Then the lacing-pins were needed.  Yan tried to make them of Hickory shoots, but the large, soft pith came just where the point was needed.  So Sam said, “You can’t beat White Oak for pins.”  He cut a block of White Oak, split it down the middle, then split half of it in the middle again, and so on till it was small enough to trim and finish with his knife.  Meanwhile Yan took the axe to split another, but found that it ran off to one side instead of going straight down the grain.

“No good,” was Sam’s comment.  “You must keep halving each time or it will run out toward the thin pieces.  You want to split shingles all winter to larn that.”

Ten pins were made eight inches long and a quarter of an inch thick.  They were used just like dressmakers’ stickpins, only the holes had to be made first, and, of course, they looked better for being regular.  Thus the cover was laced on.  The lack of ground-pegs was then seen.

“You make ten Oak pins a foot long and an inch square, Sam.  I’ve a notion how to fix them.”  Then Yan cut ten pieces of the rope, each two feet long, and made a hole about every three feet around the base of the cover above the rope in the outer seam.  He passed one end of each short rope through this and knotted it to the other end.  Thus he had ten peg-loops, and the teepee was fastened down and looked like a glorious success.

Now came the grand ceremony of all, the lighting of the first fire.  The boys felt it to be a supreme and almost a religious moment.  It is curious to note that they felt very much as savages do under the same circumstances—­that the setting up of the new teepee and lighting its first fire is an act of deep significance, and to be done only with proper regard for its future good luck.

“Better go slow and sure about that fire.  It’d be awfully unlucky to have it fizzle for the first time.”

“That’s so,” replied Yan, with the same sort of superstitious dread.  “Say, Sam, if we could really light it with rubbing-sticks, wouldn’t it be great?”

“Hallo!”

The boys turned, and there was Caleb close to them.  He came over and nodded.  “Got yer teepee, I see?  Not bad, but what did ye face her to the west fur?”