They made short work of the rats' and the swallows' nests. Breyette
quickly fashioned a broom of fine willow twigs, brought up a shovel from
the canoe, and swept and shovelled the place out. MacDonald meanwhile
cleared the weeds and grass from a space before the cabin and burned up
the unseemly refuse. The stove fulfilled its functions perfectly despite
the red rust of disuse. With buckets of boiling water they flooded and
drenched the floor and walls till the interior was as fresh and clean as
if new erected.
The place was habitable by sundown. While the long northern twilight
held the three of them carried up the freight that burdened the canoe,
and piled it in one corner, sacks of flour, sides of bacon and salt
pork, boxes of dried fruit, the miscellaneous articles with which a man
must supply himself when he goes into the wilderness.
That night they slept upon a meager thickness of blanket spread on the
hard floor.
In the morning Mike went to work again. He showed Thompson how to
arrange a mattress of hemlock boughs on the bed frame. It was a simple
enough makeshift, soft and springy when Thompson spread his bedding over
it. Then Mike superintended the final disposition of his supplies so
that there would be some semblance of order instead of an
indiscriminately mixed pile in which the article wanted was always at
the bottom.
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