The first thing they did was to dig a charcoal pit, into which they piled several cords of dry chestnut wood, setting the sticks on end in a conical heap. Over this they placed a layer of turf and a thick outer covering of earth, leaving an opening at the top. Several holes for air were pierced about the base of the heap, and then some fat pine-knots which had been laid in about the upper opening, or chimney, were set on fire. These burned briskly at first, and then died down to a wreath of smoke, which was left to sweat the wood for three days, after which the holes at the base were stopped and others made half-way up the pile. Late in November the dry, warm earth about the charcoal pit was a favorite resort of Tumbler, and he tried several times to dig into the smoldering mass, with results more amusing to the soldiers and less satisfactory to himself than those of any digging he had ever tried before. When the smoke ceased to come out of these holes at the sides, they were closed up and others pierced lower down, and so on until the process was complete. While this slow combustion was going on, a pen was built about the fireplace of the old hut and filled in with earth to a convenient height for the forge. The flue was narrowed down to a small opening for the proper draft, and a practical pumping-bellows, made of two pointed slabs of wood and the last rubber blanket, was hung in place. Besides nailing, the edges were made air-tight with a mixture of pitch and tarry sediment from the bottom of the charcoal pit, and the first nozzle of the bellows was a stick of elder, which was very soon replaced by a neat casting of gold. Bromley was the smith, and his first pincers were rather weak contrivances of platted wire; but after half the barrel of one of the carbines had with the head of the hatchet been hammered out on a smooth stone into a steel plate to cover their small anvil-block, it was possible to make of the iron that remained a few serviceable tools. [Illustration: MAKING A HUNDRED-DOLLAR CASTER.] While they now had good reason to be sorry that the gold was not iron, they were thankful for their providential supply of the softer metal, and Bromley toiled and smelted and hammered and welded and riveted, in the smoke of the forge and the steam of the water-vat, and turned out little golden conveniences that would have made a barbaric king or a modern millionaire green with envy. So it came about that, poor as they were, the three exiled soldiers, without friends or country they could call their own, sat on three-legged stools shod with hundred-dollar casters, and drank spring-water from massy golden cups fit for the dainty lips of a princess. CHAPTER XIV WHICH GIVES A NEARER VIEW OF THE NEIGHBOR CALLED "SHIFLESS"