morning, passed the "Divide" and knew we were saved. No complaints.

Fifteen days of hardship and fatigue brought us to the end of the two

hundred miles, and the Judge had not complained. We wondered if any

thing could exasperate him. We built a Humboldt house. It is done in

this way. You dig a square in the steep base of the mountain, and set up

two uprights and top them with two joists. Then you stretch a great

sheet of "cotton domestic" from the point where the joists join the

hill-side down over the joists to the ground; this makes the roof and the

front of the mansion; the sides and back are the dirt walls your digging

has left. A chimney is easily made by turning up one corner of the roof.

Oliver was sitting alone in this dismal den, one night, by a sage-brush

fire, writing poetry; he was very fond of digging poetry out of himself

--or blasting it out when it came hard. He heard an animal's footsteps

close to the roof; a stone or two and some dirt came through and fell by

him. He grew uneasy and said "Hi!--clear out from there, can't you!"

--from time to time. But by and by he fell asleep where he sat, and pretty

soon a mule fell down the chimney! The fire flew in every direction, and

Oliver went over backwards. About ten nights after that, he recovered

confidence enough to go to writing poetry again. Again he dozed off to

sleep, and again a mule fell down the chimney. This time, about half of

that side of the house came in with the mule. Struggling to get up, the

mule kicked the candle out and smashed most of the kitchen furniture, and

raised considerable dust. These violent awakenings must have been

annoying to Oliver, but he never complained. He moved to a mansion on

the opposite side of the canon, because he had noticed the mules did not

go there. One night about eight o'clock he was endeavoring to finish his

324

The Innocents Abroad