"Look here, Will," Tommy said, as he laid down a great armful of
dry wood, "some one ought to invent some kind of a contraption to
kill these flying pests off by the billion. Here it is almost cold
enough to snow, and we're being eaten alive by mosquitos."

"I reckon it wouldn't do much good to invent a way of killing the
brutes," Will suggested, "as long as the swamps and pools of the
Northwest Territories are turning them out at the rate of a billion
a minute."

"I read a story about how to get rid of mosquitos the other day,"
Sandy said. "It might be a good idea to try it."

"You can always read how to do things, in the newspapers," Tommy
argued. "The only trouble is that the ideas don't work."

"This one will work," declared Sandy. "The way to kill mosquitos,"
he continued, "is to throw a great long rope up in the air. You
let it stay up in the air; that is, one end of it, and grease it
carefully with cold cream and tie a piece of raw beefsteak at the
upper end. That will attract the mosquitos. Then when you get
several millions up the rope, you cut it in two about twenty feet
from the ground and pull the lower end down."

"It'll be the foolish house for yours!" Tommy laughed. "How are
you going to throw one end of a rope up in the air and make it stay
there?"

"I didn't say how to make it stay up in the air," grinned Sandy.