A rude enclosure, fifteen feet by thirteen, was first made of rough poplar logs, morticed together at the corners of the building. The logs, however, did not by any means lie in apposition, and the spaces between them would admit of a hand being passed through. As yet there was neither door, window, nor roof, and the walls were but six feet high in front, and little over five feet behind. These deficiencies were, however, soon supplied by the ingenious La Ronde, in a much simpler fashion than we had suspected. A doorway and window was hewn through the solid walls; a door constructed of boards from the carts; whilst a piece of parchment supplied the place of window-glass. The roof was covered in by straight poles of young, dry pines, and over this was a thatch of marsh grass, weighted down by loose earth thrown over. The lowness of the building, externally, was remedied inside by digging out the ground two feet, rendering the building very much warmer. The interstices between the logs were filled up with mud, mixed with chopped grass, to give it tenacity. But we had still the most important and difficult work of all--to build the chimney. For a long time we were unable to discover any clay wherewith to cement the boulders of which a chimney is constructed in backwood fashion, and began to be seriously afraid that the strong frost would commence before our fire-place was ready. This would, of course, have been exceedingly awkward, for it was difficult enough to work with untempered mortar, and if it were frozen, building would obviously be out of the question. At last, after digging through several feet of rich loam, we discovered some clayey soil, with which we made shift, and the fire-place rose rapidly. As it approached completion, a fire was lighted, and we were congratulating ourselves upon complete success--when, crash! and down it tumbled. Great was our consternation, and for some time we were completely nonplused. An animated discussion took place as to the manner of raising a more durable structure. La Ronde and Bruneau were much chagrined at their failure, declared the clay was worthless, and were too sulky to set to work again at once. There was, however, no time to be lost in repairing the damage, or we should be left without a fire-place when the thermometer was down below zero. Milton took upon himself to be engineer, and built up a framework of green wood to support the clay, and Cheadle, meanwhile, with horse and cart, collected a stock of the most rectangular stones to be found. By this means we built a substantial fire-place, which stood bravely all the winter.