Chapter IV: Part 4

The bunks are made by setting the ends of two poles into holes in the logs bored for that purpose (Fig. 185) and nailing slats across the poles. Over this a bed of browse is laid and on this blankets are spread and all is then ready for bedtime.

XXX

THE NORTHLAND TILT AND INDIAN LOG TENT

Log Tents

SOME years ago in the north country the Indians built themselves log tents like the one shown in Fig. 187. These were the winter houses in the north country. A ridge-pole was set up on two forked sticks and the logs slanted up against each other and rested upon that pole. Smaller poles were then laid up against this frame, both front and rear, all of which could then be covered with sod or browse and made into a warm winter house. My boy readers may build a similar house by using small poles instead of big logs, or they may make a "northland tilt" (Fig. 189), which is a modification of the Indian's log tent and has two side-plates (Fig. 188) instead of one ridge-pole. The log chimney is also added, and when this is connected with a generous fireplace the fire will brighten and warm the interior of the tilt and make things comfortable. The chimney may be made by first building a fireplace of sod or stone, as shown in Figs. 269 and 270, on top of which a chimney can be erected in the same manner that you build a log house.

Fig. 187. Fig. 188. Fig. 189.

The front of the northland tilt is faced in with small logs set on end, as shown in the unfinished one (Fig. 189); this makes a substantial, warm winter camp. If the logs fit close together on the roof they may be calked with moss and dry grass. If the cracks are too wide on account of the unevenness of the log, cover them first with grass, fine brush, or browse and over all place a coating of sod or mud and you will have a house fit for a king to live in. To tell the truth, it is much too good for a mere king and almost good enough for a real American boy--that is, if anything is good enough for such a lad.

CHAPTER XXXI

HOW TO BUILD THE RED JACKET, THE NEW BRUNSWICK, AND THE CHRISTOPHER GIST

THE "Red Jacket" is another camp; but this, you see, has straight walls, marking it as _a white man's camp_ in form not apparently borrowed from the red men. It is, however, a good, comfortable, rough camp and Figs. 190 and 191 show how it was evolved or grew. To build the Red Jacket one will first have to know how to build the more simple forms which we call the New Brunswick, then the next step will be the Christopher Gist, and last the Red Jacket. We will now begin with the New Brunswick.

The New Brunswick

By referring to Fig. 190 you will see that it is practically a deep, Adirondack, open-face camp with a wind-shield built in front of it. To build this camp, make the plan about six feet by twelve on the ground; of course the back logs must be something over six feet long to allow for six feet in the clear. Notch about four or five back logs with the plain, rounded notch already described and illustrated by Fig. 165. Then lay the side sill logs and erect two upright forked sticks for the front of your cabin to hold the cross stick which supports the roof rafter. Now build up your cabin as you would a log house, notching only the small ends of the side logs and saving the larger ends for the front; between each of these chink with other logs shaped to fit the spaces or with pieces of other logs so as to make the front higher than the rear. When the logs meet the rafter pole all the cracks are chinked up with small pieces of wood and the crevices calked with moss. Then the roof of bark is put on, shingled as described for the Pontiac, and illustrated by Figs. 36 and 190 _A_. The bark is kept in place by laying sticks or poles over it to weight it down, as may be seen by the plan of the roof (Fig. 190 _A_), which is supposed to be the way the unfinished roof would look to you if you were looking down upon it from the branch of a tree or an aeroplane. After you have your open-faced camp finished take some green logs from the fir-trees if they are handy and split them in half by one of the methods shown by Fig. 119. Then leaving enough room for a passageway, erect your wind-shield of green logs, resting them against a pole laid between two forked sticks. Be sure you have the green, split side of the log facing the camp and the bark side facing outdoors, because the green wood will not burn readily; and as the camp-fire is built close to the wind-shield, if the shield is made of very inflammable material it will soon burn down. Some woods, you know, burn well when green and some woods must be made dry before we can use them for fuel; but the wood we want for the fire-shield is the sort that will not burn readily; the good-burning woods we save to use in our fire.

Christopher Gist

The next camp is the Christopher Gist, named after George Washington's camping friend. This camp, as you may see by Fig. 191, is built like a New Brunswick except that the side sill logs are much longer as is also the log which extends over the doorway. Then, in place of having a wind-shield built by itself, the wind-shield in Fig. 191 is the other end of the cabin built just the same as the rear end, but it should be built of peeled logs as they are less liable to catch afire than the ones with the bark upon them. If you feel real lazy it will only be necessary to peel the bark off from the inside half of the log. Above the door at the end of the roof of the Adirondack camp part of the space is filled by logs running across, with the lower one resting upon the top of the door-jamb; this closes the shed above the wind-shield and leaves a little open yard in front wherein to build your camp-fire.

Fig. 190. Fig. 190A. Fig. 191. Fig. 192.

The Red Jacket

The Red Jacket continues the suggestion offered by the Christopher Gist and extends the side walls all the way across to the wind-shield, and the latter now becomes the true end of the log shack. The side walls and end wall are built up from the top of the shack to form a big, wide log chimney under which the open camp-fire is built on the ground. The Red Jacket is roofed with bark in the same manner as the New Brunswick and Christopher Gist and occupies the important position of the missing link between the true log cabin or log house and the rude log camp of the hunter. If you will look at Fig. 184, the open-faced log camp; then Fig. 190, the camp with the wind-shield in front of it; then Fig. 191 with the wind-shield enclosed but still open at the top; then 192 where the wind-shield has turned into a fireplace with a chimney; then Figs. 271 and 273, showing the ends of the real log cabin, you will have all the steps in the growth or evolution which has produced the American log house.

XXXII

CABIN DOORS AND DOOR-LATCHES, THUMB-LATCHES AND FOOT LATCHES AND HOW TO MAKE THEM

PERHAPS my reader has noticed that, although many of the descriptions of how to build the shacks, shanties, shelters, camps, sheds, tilts, and so forth are given with somewhat minute details, little or nothing has been said regarding the doors and door-latches. Of course we have no doors on the open Adirondack camp, but we have passed the open camps now and are well into cabin work, and all cabins have some sort of a door. All doors have, or should have, some sort of a door-latch, so the doors and door-latches have been saved for this place in the book, where they are sandwiched between the log cabin and the log houses proper, which is probably the best place for them. The "gummers" who collect spruce gum in the north woods and the trappers and all of the hermit class of woodsmen frequently come home to their little shack with their hands full of traps or with game on their shoulders, and consequently they want to have a door which may be opened without the necessity of dropping their load, and so they use a foot latch.

Foot Latch

One of the simplest of the foot latches consists of a piece of wood cut out by the aid of axe and hunting-knife to the form shown by Fig. 199; a hole in the door cut for that purpose admits the flattened and notched end and upon the inside it fits the round log sill. The owner of the shack, when reaching home, steps upon the foot latch (Fig. 199), which lifts up the catch (on the inside) and allows the door to swing open.

Trigger Latch

Fig. 200 shows a more complicated form of latch with a trigger protruding from the lower part of the door, which is hinged to a wooden shaft, and the shaft in turn is connected with the latch. The fastenings of the trigger to the shaft and the shaft to the latch are made with hardwood pegs or wire nails which move freely in their sockets. The latch is the simplest form of a wooden bar fastened at one end with a screw or nail on which it can move up and down freely; the other end is allowed to drop into the catch. The latch itself is similar to the one shown in Figs. 193 and 194. The trigger is also fastened to a block on the outside of the door by a nail or peg upon which it moves freely, so that when the weight of the foot is placed upon the trigger outside the door that end is forced down which pushed the end attached to the shaft up; this pushes the shaft up and the shaft pushes _the latch up_; thus the door is unfastened. The diagram to the left in Fig. 200 shows the edge of the door with the trigger on the outside, the shaft upon the inside. The diagram to the right in Fig. 200 shows the inside of the door, the end of the trigger, the shaft, the latch, and the catch.

The Latch-String

In the preceding locks and fastenings, no matter how generous and hospitable the owner may be, his latch-string never "hangs on the outside," but in this one the latch-string literally hangs outside and any one may enter by pulling it (Figs. 193 and 194). But when the owner is in and does not want to be interrupted he pulls the string in, which tells the outsider that he must knock before he can be admitted. This simplest form of latch has been here put upon the simplest form of a door, a door with a wooden hinge made by nailing a round rod to the edge of the door and allowing the ends of the rod to project above and below the door. In the sill log below the door a hole about two inches deep is bored to receive the short end of the hinge rod; above a deeper hole is bored to receive the long end of the hinge rod. To hang the door run the long end up in the top hole far enough to lift the door sufficiently to be able to drop the lower end of the hinge rod in the lower hole. Your door is then hung and may swing back and forth at your pleasure. Notwithstanding the fact that such a door admits plenty of cold air, it is a very popular door for camps and is even used for log houses.

Fig. 193. Fig. 194. Fig. 195. Fig. 196. Fig. 197. Fig. 198.

Fig. 199. Fig. 200.

Simple Spring-Latch

A simple form of spring-latch is shown by Fig. 196, as you may see, _A_ is a peg driven into the door-jamb. It has a notch in it's outer end so that _B_, a piece of hickory, may be sprung into the notch; _B_ is fastened to the door by a couple of screws. By pushing the door the latch will slide out of the rounded notch and the door opens. When you pull the door to close it the end of the spring strikes the rounded end of the _A_ peg and, sliding over it, drops naturally into the slot and holds the door closed. This form of latch is also a good one for gates.

Better Spring-Latch

Figs. 197 and 198 show more complicated spring-latches but this latch is not so difficult to make as it may appear in the diagram. _A_ and _D_ (197) show, respectively, the wooden catch and the guard confining the latch. _C_ is another guard made, as you may observe, from a twig with a branch upon it; the twig is split in half and fastened at the base with two screws, and at the upper end, where the branch is bent down, is fastened with one screw. A guard like the one shown by _D_ (Fig. 197) would answer the purpose, but I am taking the latch as it was made. The lower diagram (Fig. 198) shows a side view of the edge of the door with two cotton spools fastened at each end of the stick which runs through a slot in the door. _E_ is the cotton spool on the outside of the door and _F_ the cotton spool on the inside of the door. The upper left-hand diagram (Fig. 198) shows the slot in the door and the spool as it appears from the outside. _B_ (Fig. 197) is the spring-latch which is held in place by the spool _F_. The stick or peg which runs through the spools and the slot also runs through a hole made for that purpose in the spring-latch, as shown at _F_ (Fig. 197). After the stick with the _E_ spool on it has been run through the slot from the outside of the door, thence through the spring-latch _B_ and into the spool _F_, it is fastened there by driving around its end some thin wedges of wood or by allowing it to protrude and running a small peg through the protruding end, as shown by _F_, _G_ (Fig. 197, lower diagram). The thin, springy end of your latch is now forced down by a peg or nail in the door at _H_ (Fig. 197) and the tail end of it forced up by a peg or nail at _K_. When this is done properly it will give considerable spring to the latch and impart a decided tendency to force the latch into the wooden catch, a tendency which can only be overcome by lifting the spool up in the slot and thus lifting the latch and allowing the door to open. Fig. 197 shows the inside of the door with the spring-latch, catches and all complete; it also gives details of the wooden catch _A_ with guards _D_ and _C_ and the fastening of the stick in the spool by a peg driven through the end of the stick at _F_, _G_. This last one is a good jack-knife latch to make for your camp or cabin.

XXXIII

SECRET LOCKS

SECRET locks are more useful than strong ones for a country house which is left alone during the winter months, for it is not so much cupidity which causes such houses to be broken into as it is the curiosity of the native boys. But while these lads often do not hesitate to force or pick a lock they will seldom go as far as to smash a door to effect an entrance; hence, if your lock is concealed your house is safe from all but professional thieves, and such gentry seldom waste their time to break open a shack which contains nothing of value to them. The latches shown by Figs. 193, 200, and 201 may be made very heavy and strong, and if the trigger in Fig. 200, the latch-string hole in Fig. 193, and the peg hole in Fig. 201 are adroitly concealed they make the safest and most secure locks for summer camps, shacks, and houses.

If a large bar (Fig. 201½ _B_) be made of one-by-four-inch plank, bolted in the middle of the plank with an iron bolt through the centre of the door and fastened on the inside by a nut screwed on to the bolt it will allow the bar to revolve freely on the inside of the door and bar the door when resting in the _A_ and _C_ catches. But if a string is attached to one end it may be unfastened by pulling the string up through the gimlet hole in the door.

To conceal this lock, draw the string through the gimlet hole and fasten a nail on the string. When it is undrawn the door bar is horizontal and the door consequently barred. Then push the nail in the gimlet hole so that only the head appears on the outside and no one not in the secret will ever suppose that the innocent-appearing nail is the key to unfasten the door. When you wish to open the door from the outside, pluck out the nail, pull the string, and walk in.

There are a thousand other simple contrivances which will suggest themselves to the camper, and he can find entertainment for rainy days in planning and enlarging on the ideas here given. In the real wilderness, however, every camp is open to all comers--that is, the latch-string hangs outside the door, but the real woodsmen respect the hospitality of the absent owner and replace whatever food they may use with fresh material from their own packs, wash all dishes they may use, and sweep up and leave the shack in "apple-pie" order after their uninvited visit, for this is the law of the wilderness which even horse thieves and bandits respect.

The Tippecanoe

The Tippecanoe latch is worked with a wooden spring and when properly made, of well-seasoned wood, will probably outlast a metal one, for wood will not rust and cannot rot unless subjected to moisture.

The position of the spring in Fig. 201 shows the latch with the bolt sprung back. The fact that the bolt-hole in the catch is empty also tells the same story. The drawing of the outside of the door (Fig. 203) shows by the position of the peg that the door is fastened. To open the door, push back the bolt by sliding the peg to the opposite end of the slot. From a view of the edge of the door (Fig. 202) one may see how the peg protrudes on the outside of the door.

Fig. 201. Fig. 201½. Fig. 202. Fig. 203.

Although the Tippecanoe latch is made of quite a number of parts, it is really a very simple device, but in order to display the simplicity of its construction to the ambitious jack-knife latch maker I have drawn all the parts but the spring stick natural size (Figs. 204 to 207), but since the original diagram is drawn too large for this page and was reduced by the engraver there is a scale of inches at the bottom to give the reader the proportions.

There are no fixed dimensions for this or any other lock, latch, or catch, but the proportions here given are probably the ones that will fit your door. The foundation block is shown by Fig. 204. Upon this the latch rests and is securely nailed or screwed to the door. Figs. 205 and 206 are two wooden clamps which are fastened to the door and also to the foundation block (Fig. 204). These clamps must be notched as in the diagrams to allow for the movement of the bolt, but since the bolt (Fig. 207) is larger and thicker at the butt the notch in Fig. 205 is made just a trifle larger than the butt end of the bolt and in Fig. 206 the notch is made a trifle smaller than the opposite end of the bolt. The object of the offset on the bolt (Fig. 207) forward of the peg is to make a shoulder to stop it from shooting too far when the spring is loosened.

Fig. 204. Fig. 204½. Fig. 205. Fig. 206. Fig. 207.

The Catch

Figs. 201 and 204½ show the catch which is to be securely fastened to the door-jamb. The spring, of course, must be made of well-seasoned, elastic wood. Hickory is the best. This stick may be quite long, say half again as long in proportion as the one shown in Fig. 201. It must be flattened at the upper end and secured by two nails and it must be flattened at right angles to the upper part and somewhat pointed at the lower end so as to fit in a notch in the bolt (Fig. 201). A well-made lock of this sort is a source of constant joy and pride to the maker and he will never tire of springing it back and forth and extolling its virtues to his guests.

XXXIV

HOW TO MAKE THE BOW-ARROW CABIN DOOR AND LATCH AND THE DEMING TWIN BOLTS, HALL, AND BILLY

FIG. 209 shows the inside of the door with the wooden latch in place. You may use planks from the sawmill for the door in place of splitting them from spruce logs, as the ones here are supposed to be.

The battens (_A_, _B_, _C_) are made of birch, but you may use any material at hand for them. The hinges (Figs. _E_, 211 _D_, 210) are made of birch sticks whittled off at the top so as to leave a peg (Fig. _E_, 211) to work in a hole in the flattened end of the horizontal battens (_A_ and _C_, Fig. 209).

The batten _B_ is in two pieces. The top piece serves as a brace for the spring (Fig. _G_, 209) and the bottom piece as a support for the bolt (Fig. _H_, 209 and 212). The battens may be made of a piece of board. The bolt (Fig. _H_, 212) works free upon a nail in the left-hand end and rests in the catch (Fig. _K_, 215) on the door-jamb.

The guard (Fig. _J_, 216) fits over the bolt and keeps it in place. The notch in the guard must be long enough to give the bolt free play up and down.

The spring (Fig. _G_, 209) is fastened with a nail to the door in such a manner that its thin end rests upon the top of the bolt with sufficient force to bend the spring and hold the bolt down in the catch (Fig. _K_, 215).

The thumb-latch (Fig. _L_, 213) is whittled out in the form shown, and fastened in a slot cut in the door by a nail driven through the edge of the door (Fig. _M_, 213) and through a hole in the thumb-latch (Fig. _L_, 213). On this nail the latch works up and down.

Fig. 217 shows the outside of the door and you can see that by pressing down the thumb-latch on the outside it will lift it up on the inside, and with it the bolt lifts up the free end of the latch and thus unfastens the door.

The handle (Figs. 217 and 214 _N_) is used in place of a door-knob. It is made of yellow birch bent in hot water.

The Deming Twin Lock

E. W. Deming, the painter of Indian pictures, the mighty hunter, and fellow member of the Camp-Fire Club of America, is a great woodsman. Not only is he a great woodsman but he is the father of _twins_, and so we have thought that he possesses all the characteristics necessary to entitle him to a place in this book, and after him and his twins we have named the twin bolts shown by Fig. 208.

The lower or Hall bolt is shot into a hole in the door-sill, and the upper or Billy bolt is shot into a hole in the door-jamb above the door. The holes should be protected upon the surface of the wood by pieces of tin or sheet iron with holes cut in them to admit the bolt. The tins may be tacked over the bolt-hole in the sill for the Hall bolt and on the bolt-hole overhead for the Billy bolt, and it will prevent the splitting away of the wood around the holes.

Guards

Two guards, _A_ and _B_ (Fig. 208), made as in Fig. 216, protect the bolts and act as guides to keep them from swinging out of position; two springs _C_ and _D_ (Fig. 208), made of well-seasoned hickory and attached to the battens on the door by nails or screws, force the bolts down and up into the bolt-holes (Fig. 208). To release the bolts, the spring must be drawn back as shown by the dotted lines in Fig. 208. This may be done by means of a string or picture wire, which is fastened in the ends of the bolts and runs through a hole in the ends of the spring and is attached to the lever _E_ (Fig. 208). When the end of this lever is pushed down into the position shown by the dotted line and arrow-point, it lifts up the Hall bolt at the bottom of the door and pulls down the Billy bolt overhead, thus unfastening the door.

Fig. 208. Fig. 209. Fig. 210. Fig. 211. Fig. 212. Fig. 213.

Fig. 214. Fig. 215. Fig. 216. Fig. 217.

But, of course, if one is outside the door one cannot reach the lever _E_; so, to overcome this difficulty, a hole is bored through the central batten of the door and the latch-string is tied to the top end of the lever and the other end is run through the hole bored in the door (Fig. 208).

The end outside of the door is then tied to a nail; by pulling the nail you pull down the lever _E_, which undoes the bolts and opens the door.

When it is desired to leave the door locked, after it is closed, push the nail into the latch-string hole so that only the head will be visible from the outside. When the nail and string are arranged in this manner, a stranger will see no means of opening the door, and, as there are many nail-heads in all rough doors, the one to which the latch-string is attached will not attract the attention of any one who is unacquainted with the Deming twin bolt.

XXXV

THE AURES LOCK LATCH

THE Aures lock differs from the preceding ones in the use of metal springs, but wooden ones may be substituted; for instance, a wooden spring like the one in Fig. 209 may be put under the bolt or latch shown in Fig. 219, which is practically the same latch; that is, if you turn the latch in Fig. 209 upside down it will make the latch shown in Fig. 219; also, if you take the bolt or lock _B_ in Fig. 219 and make it of one piece of wood with a spring to it, like the one shown in Fig. 208 or Fig. 209, or make it exactly like the one shown in Fig. 201, the Aures lock can be made altogether of wood. But with this lock, as described below, metal springs were used (Figs. 219, 220, and 221).

The Door

The door shows the two strings _H_ and _K_ coming through gimlet holes near the top. Fig. 218 represents the outside of the door. The strings may be concealed by covering their ends with a board as shown in this diagram, but even if they are not concealed, one unacquainted with the lock will not know how to work them in order to open the door.

_A_ in Figs. 219, 220, and 221 is the latch which is made of a piece of wood about eight or nine inches long by about one and one half inches wide by an inch or three quarters of an inch thick. A hole is drilled near the centre of the latch and a screw placed through which is screwed into the door so that the latch will extend about two or three inches beyond the end of the door.

_D_ (Figs. 219, 220, and 221) is a catch or stop which is fastened to the door-jamb and keeps the end of the latch from flying too far up to lock the door.

_B_ (Fig. 219) is the key which is made of the same sort of wood as the latch; a hole is drilled in this also but it is here placed about one inch from the top. A screw is run through this, as in the hole in the latch, and screwed into the door (Fig. 219).

Fig. _C_, 219 is a small block of wood on which a steel-band spring has been screwed to keep the key in its proper place. The block is screwed to the door a short distance above the top of the key.

Fig. _J_, 219 is a nail or peg placed in the door close beside the key when the key is vertical; this is intended to prevent the key from being shoved over too far by the force of the band spring _F_.

Fig. 219 _L_ is a steel wire spring (a window-shade spring will answer the purpose), fastened to the door at one end and to the latch at the other end, and serves to keep the latch down and in place when locked.

Fig. 219 _K_ is the latch-string, one end of which is fastened to one end of the latch and the other end run through a hole near the top of the door and extending outside the same as the latch-string (Fig. 218).

Fig. 219 shows the positions of the latch and key when the latch is locked; to open the lock from the outside it is necessary to pull the key string first (_H_, Fig. 220), which releases the key; then pull the latch-string, thus lifting the latch while still holding the key string. The key string is now let go; the spring forcing the key into the position shown in Fig. 221 will keep the door unlocked.

When leaving the room, all that is necessary is to pull the key string which lifts the key, then let go the latch-string, and the latch will spring back to its locked position and the key will also fly back into its position as in Fig. 219. Any one not knowing the combination will be unable to open the door.

Fig. 218. Fig. 219. Fig. 220. Fig. 221. Fig. 222. Fig. 223.

Fig. 224. Fig. 225. Fig. 226. Fig. 227. Fig. 228.

The Compass Lock

This lock is made on the same principle as the combination safe lock, but it is a lock any bright boy can make for himself. In the first place, instead of numbers, use compass divisions; that is, use a disk with the points of the compass scratched on it and an ordinary door-knob with an index mark filed on its base, as shown by Fig. 224 where the finger is pointing.

Hunt up three old door-knobs like those shown in Figs. 222, 224, and 225. When you take one of the door-knobs off one end of the shaft you will find several small screw holes in the steel shaft (Fig. 222). Over this end you set a block of hardwood which you fashion out of a square block (Fig. 223) by first cutting off the corners as shown by the dotted lines, then whittling the angles off until it becomes rounded like a compass face; after which saw off an arc, that is, part of a circle, as shown in Figs. 224, 226, and 227. Next make a square hole through the centre of the circle to fit the square end of the steel shaft of the door-knob. The square hole is not the centre of the block as it is now cut, but it is the centre of the block as it was when it was round; that is, the centre of the circle. Insert the square end of the steel shaft into the square hole in the block, and, through a hole carefully drilled for the purpose, put a screw down through the hole in the end of the steel shaft (Fig. 224); this will firmly fix the block on the end of the knob. Of course, the knob must be inserted through the door before the block is permanently fastened upon the end of the shaft. Fig. 225 shows the edge of the door with the three knobs in place. If these knobs are so turned (Fig. 226) that their flat edges are parallel with the crack of the door, there is nothing to prevent you from opening the door; but if the knobs are so turned (Fig. 227) that the blocks overlap the crack of the door, the door cannot be opened without breaking the lock.

It is evident that we must have some sort of a mark to tell us how to make the proper combination so that the door may be opened. To do this, take the metal washer of the door-knob (the upper figure in Fig. 228) or a circular piece or disk of tin and divide it up like a compass (Fig. 228). Fasten these disks securely on to the door with nails or screws; place all of the disks with the north point pointing to the top of the door and in line with each other. File in the circular base of each door-knob (Fig. 224) a little notch at the black mark where the finger is pointing, then put the door-knobs in place and fasten them there (Fig. 225) by screwing the block on their ends (Fig. 224) and securing the screws in the blocks by running them through the shaft. Carefully turn the knobs so that the block on the inside fits like those shown in Fig. 226. Jot down in your notebook the position of the index on each knob (finger point, 224); one may read northeast, another may read southwest, and another may read south. When one wants to open the door one must turn the knobs so that they will read according to the notes and the door may be opened; but unless the indexes read as noted some of them will be turned as in Fig. 227, locking the door, and it may not be opened.

When the door is closed, twist the knobs around and it will lock them so that no one else can open the door unless they know the combination. The fact that there _is_ a combination will not be suggested to a stranger by the compasses, although it might be suggested if there were figures in place of compass points. But even supposing they did suspect a combination it would take a long time for them to work it out, and no one would do it but a thief. A burglar, however, would not take the time; he would pry open the door with his "jimmy" and, as I have said before, these locks are for the purpose of keeping out tramps, vagrants, and inquisitive boys.

We have no locks yet invented which will keep out a real, professional burglar if he has reason to suppose there are valuables inside.

The safety of your log cabin depends principally upon the fact that valuables are not kept in such shacks, and real burglars know it.

XXXVI

THE AMERICAN LOG CABIN

NOW that we know how to make doors and door-latches, locks, bolts, and bars, we may busy ourselves with building an American log cabin. It is all well enough to build our shacks and shanties and camps of logs with the bark on them, but, when one wishes to build a log cabin, one wants a house that will last. Abraham Lincoln's log cabin is still in existence, but it was built of logs with no bark on them. There is a two-story log house still standing in Dayton, O.; it is said to have been built before the town was there; but there is no bark on the logs. Bark holds moisture and moisture creates decay by inviting fibrous and threadlike cousins of the toadstool to grow on the damp wood and work their way into its substance. The bark also shelters all sorts of boring insects and the boring insects make holes through the logs which admit the rain and in the end cause decay, so that the first thing to remember is to peel the logs of which you propose to build the cabin. There is now, or was lately, a log cabin on Hempstead Plains, L. I., near the road leading from Mineola to Manhassett; it is supposed to have been built when the first white settlers began to arrive on Long Island, but this was what was known as a "blockhouse," a small fort. In 1906 Mr. I. P. Sapington said: "I think that I am the only man now living who helped build General Grant's log cabin." Grant's house was what is popularly known in the South as a "saddle-bag" log house, or, as the old Southwestern settlers called it, a "two-pen," the pens being two enclosures with a wide passageway or gallery between them, one roof extending over both pens and the gallery.

General Grant was not afraid of work, and, like a good scout, was always willing to help a neighbor. He had a team of big horses, a gray and a bay, and the loads of cord-wood he hauled to St. Louis were so big that they are still talked of by the old settlers. In the summer of 1854 Grant started his log cabin, and all his neighbors turned in to help him build his house.

American Log House

The American log house differs from the Canadian log house principally in the shape of the roof. Our old settlers made steep gambrel roofs to shed the rain.

"Gambrel! Gambrel? Let me beg
You'll look at a horse's hinder leg;
First great angle above the hoof,
That's the gambrel, hence the gambrel roof."

The Canadians put very flat roofs on their log cabins, usually composed of logs laid over the rafters, making them strong enough to support the heavy weight of snow. The American log cabins, as a rule, are built in a milder climate, and the flat sod roof is peculiar to our Northern boundary and the hot, arid parts of our country. We build the chimneys outside of our log cabins because, as the old settlers would say, "thar's more room out thar" (see Figs. 271, 273).

One-Pen Cabin

Fig. 229 is a one-pen cabin. To build it we first snake our logs to a skid near the site of our proposed cabin (Fig. 167), from which we can roll our logs to our house as we need them. Lay out the corners and square them (Fig. 180); notch the logs with a rounded or U-shaped notch (Fig. 165). Remember that all the logs should be two or three feet longer than the walls of the proposed building, but the notches must be the same distance apart in order to make even walls. The protruding ends of the logs may be allowed to stick out as they happen to come, no matter how irregular they may be, until the cabin is erected; then with a two-handed saw and a boy at each end they can be trimmed off evenly, thus giving a neat finish to the house.

Fig. 229. Fig. 230. Fig. 231. Fig. 232. Fig. 233. Fig. 234.

Sills

The largest, straightest, and best logs should be saved for sills or foundations. If you are building a "mudsill," that is, a building upon the ground itself, the sill logs will be subject to dampness which will cause them to rot unless they are protected by some wood preservative.

Wood Preservative

If the logs are painted with two or three coats of creosote before they are laid upon the ground, it will protect them for an indefinite time and prevent decay. Hugh P. Baker, dean of the New York State College of Forestry, writes me that--

two or three applications of warm oil with a brush will be
very helpful and will probably be all that the ordinary man
can do. Creosote is the best preservative because of its
penetrating power and the way it acts upon the fibres of
wood, and in the end is cheaper than a good many other
things which have been used to preserve timber. In fact,
various forms of creosote are best-known preservers of
organic matter. There is no advantage in using charcoal at
all and I presume suggestions have been made for using it
because we know that charred wood is more durable.
Linseed-oil is good; ordinary white-lead paint will be
better, but neither of them is as effective as creosote, and
both are more expensive. You will find that carbolineum and
other patent preparations are recommended very highly; they
are good but expensive and the difference in price between
these patent preparations and ordinary creosote is much
larger than is justified by their increased value. Creosote
can be procured in large or small quantities from a number
of concerns. I think we have been getting it for about ten
dollars per barrel of fifty or fifty-three gallons.

Creosote

may be purchased in large or small quantities from various manufacturing companies, such as the Barret Manufacturing Company, 17 Battery Place, New York City, and the Chattfield Manufacturing Company, Carthage, O., handle it in large quantities.

Openings

Build the pen as if it were to have no openings, either doors, windows, or fireplaces. When you reach the point where the top of the door, window, or fireplace is to be (Fig. 229) saw out a section of the log to mark the place and admit a saw when it is desired to finish the opening as shown in the diagram and continue building until you have enough logs in place to tack on cleats like those shown in Figs. 229, 230, and 231, after which the openings may be sawed out. The cleats will hold the ends of the logs in place until the boards _U_ (Fig. 232) for the door-jambs, window-frames, or the framework over the fireplace can be nailed to the ends of the logs and thus hold them permanently in place. If your house is a "mudsill," wet the floor until it becomes spongy, then with the butt end of a log ram the dirt down hard until you have an even, hard floor--such a floor as some of the greatest men of this nation first crept over when they were babies. But if you want a board floor, you must necessarily have floor-joists; these are easily made of milled lumber or you may use the rustic material of which your house is built and select some straight logs for your joists. Of course, these joists must have an even top surface, which may be made by flattening the logs by scoring and hewing them as illustrated by Figs. 123, 124, and 125 and previously described. It will then be necessary to cut the ends of the joist square and smaller than the rest of the log (Fig. _A_, 229); the square ends must be made to fit easily into the notches made in the sill logs (_B_, Fig. 229) so that they will all be even and ready for the flooring (_C_, Fig. 229). For a house ten feet wide the joists should be half a foot in diameter, that is, half a foot through from one side to the other; for larger spans use larger logs for the joists.

Foundation

If your house is not a "mudsill" you may rest your sill logs upon posts or stone piles; in either case, in the Northern States, they should extend three feet below the ground, so as to be below frost-line and prevent the upheaval of the spring thaw from throwing your house "out of plumb."

Roofing

All the old-time log cabins were roofed with shakes, splits, clapboards, or hand-rived shingles as already described and illustrated by Figs. 126, 128, 129, and 130; but to-day they are usually shingled with the machine-sawed shingle of commerce. You may, however, cover the roof with planks as shown by Fig. 233 or with bark weighted down with poles as shown by Fig. 234. In covering it with board or plank nail the latter on as you would on a floor, then lay another course of boards over the cracks which show between the boards on the first course.

Gables

The gable ends of the cabin should be built up of logs with the rafters of the roof running between the logs as they are in Figs. 229 and 233, but the roof may be built, as it frequently is nowadays, of mill lumber, in which case it may be framed as shown by Figs. 49, 51, and the gable end above the logs filled in with upright poles as shown in Figs. 173 and 247, or planked up as shown in the Southern saddle-bag (Fig. 241), or the ends may be boarded up and covered with tar paper as shown in Fig. 248, or the gable end may be shingled with ordinary shingles (Fig. 79).

Steep Roof

Remember that the steeper the roof is the longer the shingles will last, because the water will run off readily and quickly on a steep surface and the shingles have an opportunity to dry quickly; besides which the snow slides off a steep roof and the driving rains do not beat under the shingles. If you are using milled lumber for the roof, erect the rafters at the gable end first, with the ridge board as shown in Fig. 263 and in greater detail in Fig. 49. Put the other rafters two or three feet apart.

Let your roof overhang the walls by at least seven or eight inches so as to keep the drip from the rain free of the wall. It is much easier for the architect to draw a log house than it is for a builder to erect one, for the simple reason that the draughtsman can make his logs as straight as he chooses, also that he can put the uneven places where they fit best; but except in well-forested countries the tree trunks do not grow as straight as the logs in my pictures and you must pick out the logs which will fit together. Run them alternately butt and head; that is, if you put the thick end of the log at the right-hand end of your house, with the small end at the left, put the next log with the small end at the right and thick end at the left; otherwise, if all the thick ends are put at one side and the small ends at the other, your house will be taller at one end than at the other as is the case with some of our previous shacks and camps (Figs. 190, 191, and 192) which are purposely built that way.

If it is planned to have glass window lights, make your window openings of the proper size to fit the window-frames which come with the sashes from the factory. In any case, if the cabin is to be left unoccupied you should have heavy shutters to fit in the window opening so as to keep out trespassers.

Chinking

If your logs are uneven and leave large spaces between them, they may be chinked up by filling the spaces with mud plaster or cement, and then forcing in quartered pieces of small logs and nailing them or spiking them in position. If your logs are straight spruce logs and fit snugly, the cracks may be calked up with swamp moss (Sphagnum), or like a boat, with oakum, or the larger spaces may be filled with flat stones and covered with mud. This mud will last from one to seven or eight years; I have some on my own log cabin that has been there even a longer time.

XXXVII

A HUNTER'S OR FISHERMAN'S CABIN

IN all the hilly and mountainous States there are tracts of forest lands and waste lands of no use to the farmer and of no use to settlers, but such places offer ideal spots for summer camps for boys and naturalists, for fishermen and sportsmen, and here they may erect their cabins (_see Frontispiece_) and enjoy themselves in a healthy, natural manner. These cabins will vary according to the wants of the owners, according to the material at hand and the land upon which they are built. By extending the rafters of the roof, the latter may be extended (_see Frontispiece_) to protect the front and make a sort of piazza which may be floored with puncheons.

The logs forming the sides of the house may be allowed to extend so as to make a wall or fence, as they do on the right-hand side of the Frontispiece, thus preventing the danger of falling over the cliff upon which this cabin is perched and receiving injury or an unlooked-for ducking in the lake. They may also be extended as they are on the left, to make a shield behind which a wood-yard is concealed, or to protect an enclosure for the storage of the larger camp utensils.

In fact, this drawing is made as a suggestion and not to be copied exactly, because every spot differs from every other spot, and one wants to make one's house conform to the requirements of its location; for instance, the logs upon the right-hand side might be allowed to extend all the way up to the roof, as they do at the bottom, and thus make a cosey corner protected from the wind and storm.

The windows in such a cabin may be made very small, for all work is supposed to be done outdoors, and when more light is needed on the inside the door may be left open. In a black-fly country or a mosquito country, however, when you are out of reach of screen doors, mosquito-netting may be tacked over the windows and a portière of mosquito-netting over the doorway.

XXXVIII

HOW TO MAKE A WYOMING OLEBO, A HOKO RIVER OLEBO, A SHAKE CABIN, A CANADIAN MOSSBACK, AND A TWO-PEN OR SOUTHERN SADDLE-BAG HOUSE

ONE of the charms of a log-cabin building is the many possibilities of novelties suggested by the logs themselves. In the hunter's cabin (_see Frontispiece_) we have seen how the ends of the logs were allowed to stick out in front and form a rail for the front stoop; the builders of the olebos have followed this idea still further.

The Wyoming Olebo

In Fig. 236 we see that the side walls of the pen are allowed to extend on each side so as to enclose a roofed-over open-air room, or, if you choose to so call it, a front porch, veranda, stoop, piazza, or gallery, according to the section of the country in which you live.