FOOTNOTE:

[C] Today flint may be obtained at Bannermans, 501 Broadway, New York City, where they also have ancient steels which were used by the U. S. soldiers. The flints may also be purchased from Wards Natural Science Establishment at Rochester, New York, and the author found a plentiful supply of flints at one of the Army and Navy stores in New York.

CHAPTER III
HOW TO BUILD A FIRE

CHAPTER III
HOW TO BUILD A FIRE

"By thy camp-fire they shall know thee."

A party of twenty or thirty men once called at the author's studio and begged that he would go with them on a hike, stating that they intended to cook their dinner out-of-doors. We went on the hike. The author asked the gentlemen to collect the wood for the fire; they did so enthusiastically and heaped up about a quarter of a cord of wood. There was no stick in the pile less than the thickness of one's arm, and many as thick as one's leg. A fine misty rain was falling and everything was damp. While all the other hikers gathered around, one of them carefully lighted a match and applied it to the heap of damp cord wood sticks. Match after match he tried, then turned helplessly to the writer with the remark, "It won't light, sir," and none there saw the humor of the situation!

Had anyone told the writer that from twenty-five to thirty men could be found, none of whom could build a fire, he would have considered the statement as highly improbable, but if he had been told that any intelligent man would try to light cord wood sticks, wet or dry, by applying a match to them, he would have branded the story as utterly beyond belief. It is, however, really astonishing how few people there are who know how to build a fire even when supplied with plenty of fuel and abundant matches.

Matches

It may be well to call the reader's attention to the fact that it takes very little moisture to spoil the scratch patch on a box of safety matches and prevent the match itself from igniting. The so-called parlor match, which snaps when one lights it and often shoots the burning head into one's face or on one's clothes, is too dangerous a match to take into the woods. The bird's-eye match is exceedingly unreliable on the trail, but the old-fashioned, ill-smelling Lucifer match, sometimes called sulphur match, the kind one may secure at the Hudson Bay Trading Post, the kind that comes in blocks and is often packed in tin cans, is the best match for woodcrafters, hunters, explorers, and hikers. Most of the outfitting stores in the big cities either have these matches or can procure them for their customers. When one of these matches is damp it may be dried by running it through one's hair.

Nowadays manual labor seems to be looked upon by everyone more in the light of a disgrace or punishment than as a privilege; nevertheless, it is a privilege to be able to labor, it is a privilege to have the vim, the pep, the desire and the ability to do things. Labor is a necessary attribute of the doer and those who live in the open; no one need attempt so simple a thing as the building of a fire and expect to succeed without labor.

One must use the axe industriously ([Figs. 39], [42], and [43]) in order to procure fuel for the fire; one must plan the fire carefully with regard to the wind and the inflammable material adjacent; one must collect and select the fuel intelligently.

The shirk, the quitter, or the side-stepper has no place in the open; his habitat is on the Great White Way among the Babylonians of the big cities. He does not even know the joys of a fire; he never sees a fire except when some building is burning. His body is heated by steam radiators, his food is cooked in some mysterious place beyond his ken, and brought to him by subservient waiters. He will be dead and flowers growing on his grave when the real fire-makers are just attaining the full vigor of their manhood.

Captain Belmore Browne says that the trails of the wilderness are its arteries; we may add that all trails proceed from camp or lead to camp, and that the camp-fire is the living, life-giving, palpitating heart of the camp; without it all is dead and lifeless. That is the reason that we of the outdoor brotherhood all love the fire; that is the reason that the odor of burning wood is incense to our nostrils; that is the reason that the writer cannot help talking about it when he should be telling

How to Build a Fire

Do not forget that lighting a fire in hot, dry weather is child's play, but that it takes a real camper to perform the same act in the damp, soggy woods on a cold, raw, rainy day, or when the first damp snow is covering all the branches of the trees and blanketing the moist ground with a slushy mantle of white discomfort! Then it is that fire making brings out all the skill and patience of the woodcrafter; nevertheless when he takes proper care neither rain, snow nor hail can spell failure for him.

Gummy Fagots of the Pine

In the mountains of Pennsylvania the old backwoodsmen, of which there are very few left, invariably build their fires with dry pine, or pitch pine sticks.

With their axe they split a pine log ([Fig. 42]), then cut it into sticks about a foot long and about the thickness of their own knotted thumbs, or maybe a trifle thicker ([Fig. 40]); after that they proceed to whittle these sticks, cutting deep shavings ([Fig. 37]), but using care to leave one end of the shavings adhering to the wood; they go round and round the stick with their knife blade making curled shavings until the piece of kindling looks like one of those toy wooden trees one used to find in his Noah's Ark on Christmas morning ([Fig. 37]).

When a backwoodsman finishes three or more sticks he sets them up wigwam form ([Fig. 38]). The three sticks having been cut from the centre of a pine log, are dry and maybe resinous, so all that is necessary to start the flame is to touch a match to the bottom of the curled shavings ([Fig. 38]).

Before they do this, however, they are careful to have a supply of small slivers of pitch pine, white pine or split pine knots handy ([Fig. 36]). These they set up around the shaved sticks, maybe adding some hemlock bark, and by the time it is all ablaze they are already putting on larger sticks of ash, black birch, yellow birch, sugar maple or oak.

For be it known that however handy pitch pine is for starting a fire, it is not the material used as fuel in the fire itself, because the heavy smoke from the pitch blackens up the cooking utensils, gives a disagreeable taste to the food, spoils the coffee and is not a pleasant accompaniment even for a bonfire.

In the North woods, in the land of the birch trees, green birch bark is universally used as kindling with which to start a fire; green birch bark burns like tar paper. But whether one starts the fire with birch bark, shaved pine sticks or miscellaneous dry wood, one must remember that

Split Wood

Burns much better than wood in its natural form, and that logs from twelve to fourteen inches are best for splitting for fuel ([Fig. 42]); also one must not forget that in starting a fire the smaller the slivers of kindling wood are made, the easier it is to obtain a flame by the use of a single match ([Fig. 36]), after which the adding of fuel is a simple matter. A fire must have air to breathe in order to live, that is a draught, consequently kindling piled in the little wigwam shape is frequently used.

Fire-dogs

For an ordinary, unimportant fire the "turkey-lay" ([Fig. 54]) is handy, but for camp-fires and cooking fires we use andirons on which to rest the wood, but of course in the forests we do not call them andirons. They are not made of iron; they are either logs of green wood or stones and known to woodsmen by the name of "fire-dogs."

While we are on the subject of fire making it may be worth while to call the reader's attention to the fact that every outdoor person should know how to use a pocket knife, a jack-knife or a hunter's knife with the greatest efficiency and the least danger.

To those of us who grew up in the whittling age, it may seem odd or even funny that anyone should deem it necessary to tell how to open a pocket knife. But today I fail to recall to my mind a single boy of my acquaintance who knows how to properly handle a knife or who can whittle a stick with any degree of skill, and yet there are few men in this world with a larger acquaintance among the boys than myself. Not only is this true, but I spend two months of each year in the field with a camp full of boys, showing them how to do the very things with their knives and their axes described in this book.

How to Open a Knife

It is safe to say that when the old-timers were boys themselves, there was not a lad among them who could not whittle with considerable skill and many a twelve year old boy was an adept at the art. I remember with the keenest pleasure the rings, charms and knick-knacks which I carved with a pocket knife before I had reached the scout age of twelve. Today, however, the boys handle their knives so awkwardly as to make the chills run down the back of an onlooker.

In order to properly open a knife, hold it in your left hand, and with the thumbnail of your right hand grasp the blade at the nail notch ([Fig. 45]) in such a manner that the line of the nail makes a very slight angle; that is, it is as near perpendicular as may be ([Fig. 46]), otherwise you will bend back your thumbnail until it hurts or breaks. Pull the blade away from your body, at the same time drawing the handle of the knife towards the body ([Figs. 47] and [48]). Continue this movement until the blade is fully open and points directly from your body ([Fig. 49]).

Practise this and make it a habit; you will then never be in danger of stabbing yourself during the process of opening your knife—you will open a knife properly and quickly by what is generally termed intuition, but what is really the result of training and habit.

How to Whittle

The age of whittling began with the invention of the pocket knife and reached its climax about 1840 or '50, dying out some time after the Civil War, probably about 1870. All the old whittlers of the whittling age whittled away from the body. If you practise whittling that way it will become a habit.

Indians use a crooked knife and whittle towards the body, but the queer shape of their knife does away with the danger of an accidental stab or slash. Cobblers use a wicked sharp knife and cut towards their person and often are severely slashed by it, and sometimes dangerously wounded, because a big artery runs along the inside of one's leg ([Fig. 41½]) near where most of the scars on the cobbler's legs appear. When you whittle do not whittle with a stick between your legs as in [Fig. 41], and always whittle away from you as in [Fig. 44].

How to Split with a Jack-knife

[Fig. 40] shows the proper way to use the knife in splitting a stick, so that it will not strain the spring at the back of the handle of the knife, and at the same time it will help you guide the knife blade and tend to make a straight split. Do not try to pry the stick apart with a knife or you will sooner or later break the blade, a serious thing for a wilderness man to do, for it leaves him without one of the most useful tools.

Remember that fine slivers of wood make a safer and more certain start for a fire than paper. All tenderfeet first try dry leaves and dry grass to start their fires. This they do because they are accustomed to the use of paper and naturally seek leaves or hay as a substitute for paper. But experience soon teaches them that leaves and grass make a nasty smudge or a quick, unreliable flame which ofttimes fails to ignite the wood, while, when proper care is used, small slivers of dry wood never fail to give satisfactory results.

There are many sorts of fires used by campers and all are dependent upon the local supply of fuel; in the deforested districts of Korea the people use twisted grass for fuel, on our Western plains the hunters formerly used buffalo chips and now they use cow chips, that is, the dry manure of cattle, with which to build their fires for cooking their meals and boiling their coffee. In the Zurn belt, in Tartary and Central India cattle manure is collected, piled up like cord wood and dried for fuel. A few years ago they used corn on the cob for firewood in Kansas. It goes without saying that buffalo chips are not good for bonfires or any fire where a big flame or illumination is an object.

Bonfires and Council Fires

Are usually much larger than camp-fires, and may be made by heaping the wood up in conical form ([Fig. 50]) with the kindling all ready for the torch in the center of the pile, or the wood may be piled up log cabin style ([Fig. 51]) with the kindling underneath the first floor.

In both of these forms there are air spaces purposely left between the sticks of wood, which insure a quick and ready draught the moment the flames start to flicker in the kindling.

The best form of council fire is shown by [Fig. 52], and known as the

Camp Meeting Torch

Because it was from a somewhat similar device at a camp meeting in Florida, that the author got the suggestion for his "torch fire." The platform is made of anything handy and is covered with a thick flooring of sod, sand or clay for the fire-place.

The tower is built exactly similar to the Boy Scout signal towers but on a smaller scale ([Fig. 52]).

Danger of Exploding Stones

However tempting a smooth rock may look as a convenient spot on which a fire may be built, do not fail to spread a few shovels of sand, earth or clay on the stone as a fire bed, for the damp rock on becoming heated may generate steam and either expand with some violence or burst like a bomb-shell and scatter far and wide the fragments, even endangering the lives of those gathered around the fire.

Character in Fire

The natives of Australia take dry logs, 6 ft. or more in length, and laying them down 3 ft. or 4 ft. apart, set them on fire in several places. Letting shorter logs meet them from the outside, and placing good-sized pebbles around them, they then stretch themselves on the ground and sleep between the two lines of fire, and when the wood is consumed the stones continue for some time to radiate the heat they have previously absorbed. Many tribes of American Indians have their own special fashion of fire building, so that a deserted camp fire will not infrequently reveal the identity of the tribe by which it was made.

Slow Fires

The camper's old method of making a slow fire was also used by housekeepers for their open fire-places, and consisted of placing three logs with their glowing ends together.

As the ends of the logs burned off the logs were pushed forward, this being continued until the logs were entirely consumed. Three good logs thus arranged will burn all day or all night, but someone must occasionally push them so that their ends come together, when they send their heat from one to the other, backwards and forwards, and thus keep the embers hot ([Fig. 53]). But who wants to sit up all night watching a fire? I prefer to use the modern method and sleep all night.

Sharpen the ends of two strong heavy stakes each about 5 ft. in length, cut a notch in the rear of each near the top, for the support or back to key into, drive the stakes into the ground about 6 ft. apart. Place three logs one on the other, making a log wall for the back of your fire-place. Next take two shorter logs and use them for fire-dogs, and on these lay another log and the arrangement will be complete. A fire of this kind will burn during the longest night and if skillfully made will cause little trouble. The fire is fed by placing fuel between the front log and the fire-back.

Signal Fires

When the greatest elevations of land are selected the smoke signals may be seen at a distance of from twenty to fifty miles. Signal fires are usually made with dry leaves, grass and weeds or "wiry willows," balsam boughs, pine and cedar boughs, because such material produces great volumes of smoke and may be seen at a long distance. The Apaches have a simple code which might well be adopted by all outdoor people. According to J. W. Powell, Director of U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, the Indians use but three kinds of signals, each of which consists of columns of smoke.

Alarm

Three or more smoke columns reads impending danger from flood, fire or foe. This signal may be communicated from one camp to another, so as to alarm a large section of the country in remarkably quick time. The greater the haste desired the greater the number of smokes used. These fires are often so hastily made that they may resemble puffs of smoke caused by throwing heaps of grass and leaves upon the embers again and again.

Attention

"This signal is generally made by producing one continuous column and signifies attention for several purposes, viz., when a band had become tired of one locality, or the grass may have been consumed by the ponies, or some other cause necessitated removal, or should an enemy be reported which would require further watching before a decision as to future action would be made. The intention or knowledge of anything unusual would be communicated to neighboring bands by causing one column of smoke to ascend."

Establishment of a Camp, Quiet, Safety

"When a removal of camp has been made, after the signal for Attention has been given, and the party have selected a place where they propose to remain until there may be a necessity or desire for their removal, two columns of smoke are made, to inform their friends that they propose to remain at that place. Two columns are also made at other times during a long continued residence, to inform the neighboring bands that a camp still exists, and that all is favorable and quiet."

Therefore, Three or more smokes in daylight, or Three or more flames at night, is a signal of alarm, One smoke a signal for attention, Two smokes tells us that all is well, peaceful and happy.

Smoke Signals

The usual way of signalling with smoke is to make a smudge fire of browse or grass and use a blanket as an extinguisher. By covering the fire with the blanket and suddenly removing it, a large globular puff of smoke is made to suddenly appear, and is certain to attract the attention of anyone who happens to be looking toward the site of the fire.

How to Build a Fire on the Snow

If it is practical it is naturally better to shovel away the snow, but personally I have never done this except in case of newly fallen snow. Old snow which is more or less frozen to the ground may be tramped down until it is hard and then covered with a corduroy of sticks for a hearth ([Figs. 55] and [56]) or with bark ([Fig. 57]) and on top of this flooring it is a simple matter to build a fire. Use the turkey-"lay" in which one of the sticks acts the part of the fire-dog ([Fig. 56]).

Don't fail to collect a generous supply of small wood ([Fig. 58]) and then start the fire as already directed ([Fig. 58]).

The reader will note that in all these illustrations ([Figs. 55], [56], and [57]), there is either a log or stone or a bank for a back to the fire-place. When everything is covered with snow it is perfectly safe to use a log for a back ([Fig. 56]) but on other occasions the log may smoulder for a week and then start a forest fire.

No one but an arrant, thoughtless, selfish Cheechako will use a live growing tree against which to build a fire. A real woodcraft knows that a fire can ruin in a few minutes a mighty forest tree that God himself cannot replace inside of from forty to one hundred years.

While we are talking of building fires in the snow, it may be well to remark that an uninhabitable and inaccessible swamp in the summer is often the best of camping places in the winter time. The water freezes and falls lower and lower, leaving convenient shelves of ice ([Fig. 57]) for one's larder. The dense woods and brush offer a splendid barrier to the winter winds. [Fig. 59] shows an arrangement for a winter camp-fire.

How to Make a Fire in the Rain

Spread a piece of bark on the ground to serve as a hearth on which to start your fire. Seek dry wood by splitting the log and taking the pieces from the center of the wood, keep the wood under cover of your tent, poncho, coat or blanket. Also hold a blanket or some similar thing over the fire while you are lighting it. After the blaze begins to leap and the logs to burn freely, it will practically take a cloud-burst to extinguish it.

CHAPTER IV
HOW TO LAY A GOOD COOKING FIRE

CHAPTER IV
HOW TO LAY A GOOD COOKING FIRE

No matter where the old camper may be, no matter how long a time may have elapsed since last he slept in the open, no matter how high or low a social or official position he may now occupy, it takes but one whiff of the smoke of an open fire, or one whiff of the aroma of frying bacon, to send him back again to the lone trail. In imagination he will once more be hovering over his little camp-fire in the desert, under the shade of the gloomy pines, mid the snows of Alaska, in the slide rock of the Rockies or mid the pitch pines of the Alleghenies, as the case may be.

That faint hint in the air of burning firewood or the delicious odor of the bacon, for the moment, will not only wipe from his vision his desk, his papers and his office furniture, but also all the artificialities of life. Even the clicking of the typewriter will turn into the sound of clicking hoofs, the streets will become canyons, and the noise of traffic the roar of the mountain torrent!

There is no use talking about it, there is no use arguing about it, there is witchcraft in the smell of the open fire, and all the mysteries and magic of the Arabian Nights dwell in the odor of frying bacon.

Some years ago Mr. Arthur Rice, the Secretary of the Camp-fire Club of America, and Patrick Cleary, a half-breed Indian, with the author, became temporarily separated from their party in the Northern wilds. They found themselves on a lonely wilderness lake surrounded by picture mountains, and dotted with tall rocky islands covered with Christmas trees, giving the whole landscape the appearance of the scenery one sometimes sees painted on drop-curtains for the theatre. Everything in sight was grand, everything was beautiful, everything was built on a generous scale, everything was big, not forgetting the voyagers' appetites!

Unfortunately the provisions were in the missing canoe; diligent search, however, in the bottom of Patrick Cleary's ditty bag disclosed three small, hard, rounded lumps, which weeks before might have been bread; also a handful of tea mixed with smoking tobacco, and that was all! There was no salt, no butter, no pepper, no sugar, no meat, no knives, no forks, no spoons, no cups, no plates, no saucers and no cooking utensils; the party had nothing but a few stone-like lumps of bread and the weird mixture of tea and tobacco with which to appease their big appetites. But in the lake the trout were jumping, and it was not long before the hungry men had secured a fine string of spotted beauties to add to their menu.

Under the roots of a big spruce tree, at the bottom of a cliff on the edge of the lake, a fountain of cold crystal water spouted from the mossy ground. Near this they built a fire while Mr. Rice fashioned a little box of birch bark, filled it with water and placed it over the hot embers by resting the ends of the box on fire-dogs of green wood. Into the water in the birch bark vessel was dumped the tea (and—also tobacco)!

To the amazement and delight of the Indian half-breed, the tea was soon boiling. Meanwhile the half-breed toasted some trout until the fish were black, this being done so that the charcoal or burnt skins might give a flavor to the fish, and in a measure compensate for the lack of salt. The hunks of bread were burned until they were black, not for flavor this time, but in order that the bread might be brittle enough to allow a man to bite into it with no danger of breaking his teeth in the attempt.

To-day it seems to the author that that banquet on that lonely lake, miles from the nearest living human being, was more delicious and more satisfying than any of the feasts of Belshazzar he has since attended in the wonder city of New York.

Therefore, when taking up the subject of cooking fire and camp kitchen, he naturally begins with

The Most Primitive of Cooking Outfits

Consisting of two upright forked sticks and a waugan-stick to lay across from fork to fork over the fire. Or maybe a speygelia-stick thrust slantingly into the ground in front of the fire, or perhaps a saster-pole on which to suspend or from which to dangle, in front of the fire, a hunk of moose meat, venison, mountain sheep, mountain goat, whale blubber, beaver, skunk, rabbit, muskrat, woodchuck, squirrel or whatsoever fortune may send.

Camp Pot-hooks

Are of various forms and designs, but they are not the S shaped things formerly so familiar in the big open fire-places of the old homesteads, neither are they the hated S shaped marks with which the boys of yesterday were wont to struggle and disfigure the pages of their writing books.

If any one of the camp pot-hooks had been drawn in the old-time writing book or copybook, it would have brought down the wrath (with something else) of the old-fashioned school-master, upon the devoted head of the offending pupil. For these pot-hooks are not regular in form and the shape and designs largely depend upon the available material from which they are fashioned, and not a little upon the individual fancy of the camper. For instance the one known as

The Gallow-crook

Is not, as the name might imply, a human crook too intimately associated with the gallows, but on the contrary it is a rustic and useful bit of forked stick ([Figs. 60], [61], [62] and [63]) made of a sapling. [Fig. 60] shows how to select the sapling and where to cut it below a good sturdy fork. [Fig. 61] shows the bit of sapling trimmed down to the proper length and with two forks, one at each end. On the upper fork you will note that one prong is a slender elastic switch. [Fig. 62] shows how this switch may be bent down and bound with a string or tape made of green bark, and so fastened to the main stem as to form a loop which will easily slip over the waugan-stick as in [Fig. 63]. [Fig. 62A] shows a handy hitch with which to make fast the bark binding.

When the waugan-stick has been thrust through the loop of the gallow-crook, the former is replaced in the crotches of the two forked sticks, as in [Fig. 63], and the pot or kettle, pail or bucket, is hooked on to the lower fork. You will note that the lower fork is upon the opposite side of the main stick from that from which the switch prong of the upper fork springs. This arrangement is not necessary to make the pot balance properly over the fire; the same rule holds good for all the other pot-hooks.[D]

The Pot-claw

Will be best understood by inspecting the diagrams ([Figs. 64], [65], and [66]), which show its evolution or gradual growth. By these diagrams you will see the stick is so cut that the fork may be hooked over the waugan-stick and the cooking utensils, pots or kettles may be hung over the fire by slipping their handles into the notch cut in the stick on the side opposite to the fork and near the lower end of the pot-claw. This is a real honest-to-goodness Buckskin or Sourdough pot-hook; it is one that requires little time to manufacture and one that is easily made wherever sticks grow, or wherever "whim" sticks or driftwood may be found heaped upon the shore.

The Hake

Is easier to make than the pot-claw. It is a forked stick like the pot-claw, but in place of the notch near the lower end a nail is driven diagonally into the stick and the kettle hung on the nail ([Figs. 67] and [68]). The hake possesses the disadvantage of making it necessary for the camper to carry a supply of nails in his kit. No Sourdough on a long and perilous trip loads himself down with nails. A hake, however, is a very good model for Boy Scouts, Girl Pioneers, and hikers of all descriptions who may go camping in the more thickly settled parts of the country.

The Gib

Is possibly a corruption of gibbet, but it is a much more humane implement. It requires a little more time and a little more skill to make a gib ([Fig. 69]) than it does to fashion the preceding pot-hook. It is a useful hook for stationary camps where one has time to develop more or less intricate cooking equipment. [Fig. 69A] shows how the two forked sticks are cut to fit together in a splice, and it also shows how this splice is nailed together with a couple of wire nails, and [Fig. 70] shows how the wire nails are clinched.

In a book of this kind the details of all these designs are given not because any one camper is expected to use them all, but because there are times when any one of them may be just the thing required. It is well, however, to say that the most practicable camp pot-hooks are the pot-claw and the hake.

In making a pot-claw care should be taken to cut the notch on the opposite side of the forked branch, and at the other end of the claw, deep enough to hold the handle of the cooking utensils securely.

While the author was on an extended trip in the blustering North land his party had a pot-claw as crooked as a yeggman, and as knotty as a problem in higher mathematics. While there can be no doubt that one of the party made this hoodoo affair it has never yet been decided to whom the credit belongs—because of the innate modesty of the men no one claims the honor. This misshapen pot-claw was responsible for spilling the stew on several occasions, not to speak of losing the boiled rice. Luckily one of the party was a stolid Indian, one a consistent member of the Presbyterian church, one a Scout and one a member of the Society of Friends, consequently the air was not blue and the only remarks made were, "Oh my!" "Bless my soul!" and "Gee willikens!"

The cook in despair put the wicked thing in the fire with muttered hints that the fire might suggest the region where such pot-hooks belong. While it burned and its evil spirit dissolved in smoke, the Indian made a new pot-claw, a respectable pot-claw with a straight character, and a more secure notch. This one by its benign presence brought peace and good will to the camp and showed the necessity of taking pains and using care in the manufacture of even so lowly a thing as a pot-claw.

The camp pot-hooks should be of various lengths; long ones to bring the vessels near the fire where the heat is more intense; short ones to keep the vessels further from the fire so that their contents will not cook but only keep warm; and medium ones for simmering or slow cooking.

The Speygelia

Is not an Italian, but is a long name for a short implement. The speygelia is a forked stick or a notched stick ([Figs. 71], [72], and [73]), which is either propped up on a forked stick ([Fig. 71]) and the lower end held down by a stone in such a manner that the fork at the upper end offers a place to hang things over, or in front of the fire, sometimes a notched stick is used in the same manner as [Fig. 73]. Where the ground is soft to permit it, the stick is driven diagonally into the earth, which may hold it in place without other support. The speygelia is much used by cow-punchers and other people in places where wood is scarce.

The Saster

The saster is a long pole used in the same manner as the speygelia. Meat is suspended from it in front of the fire to roast ([Figs. 74½] and [75]), or kettles are suspended from it over the fire to boil water ([Fig. 74]).

Telegraph Wire Cooking Implements

Many campers are fond of making for themselves cooking utensils improvised from ordinary telegraph wire. In the old time open fire-places of our grandsires' kitchen there were trammels consisting of chains hanging down the chimney on which things were hooked by short pot-hooks to hang over the fire; there were also rakens made of bands of iron with holes punched in them for the attachment of short iron pot-hooks ([Fig. 76]). With these ancient implements in their minds, some ingenious campers manufacture themselves rakens and short pot-hooks from telegraph wire ([Fig. 77]). By twisting the wire in a series of short loops, each loop can be made to serve as a place for attaching the pot-hooks as did the holes in the old-fashioned rakens. The advantages they claim for the telegraph wire raken are lightness and its possibility of being readily packed.

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On one of these rakens one may hook the pail as high or as low as one chooses ([Fig. 78]); not only that but one may ([Fig. 79]) put a small pail inside the larger one, where later it is full of water, for the purpose of cooking cereal without danger of scorching it.

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The disadvantage of all these implements is that they must be toted wherever one goes, and parts are sure to be lost sooner or later, whereupon the camper must resort to things "with the bark on 'em," like the gallow-crook, the pot-claw, the hake, the gib, the speygelia, or the saster, or he may go back to the first principles and sharpen the forks of a green wand and impale thereon the bacon, game or fish that it may be thus toasted over the hot embers ([Fig. 80]). We do not put meat over the fire because it will burn on the outside before it cooks and the fumes of the smoke will spoil its flavor.

According to Mr. Seton, away up in the barren lands they use the saster with a fan made of a shingle-like piece of wood, fastened with a hitch to a piece of wire and a bit of string; the wind—when it is good-natured—will cause the cord to spin round and round. But the same result is secured with a cord which has been soaked in water to prevent it from burning, and which has also been twisted by spinning the meat with one's hands ([Fig. 75]). Such a cord will unwind and wind more or less slowly for considerable time, thus causing the meat to expose all sides of its surface to the heat of the roasting fire in front of which it hangs. You will note we say in front; again let us impress upon the reader's mind that he must not hang his meat over the flame. In [Fig. 75] the meat is so drawn that one might mistake its position and think it was intended to hang over the fire, whereas the intention is to hang it in front of the fire as in [Fig. 74]. In the writer's boyhood days it was his great delight to hang an apple by a wet string in front of the open fire, and to watch it spin until the heat sent the juices bubbling through the skin and the apple gradually became thoroughly roasted.

The Gridiron

Campers have been known to be so fastidious as to demand a broiler to go with their kit; at the same time there was enough of the real camper in them to cause them to avoid carrying unwieldy broilers such as are used in our kitchens. Consequently they compromise by packing a handful of telegraph wires of even length with their duffel ([Fig. 81]), each wire having its ends carefully bent in the form of a hook ([Fig. 82]), which may be adjusted over two green sticks resting upon two log fire-dogs ([Fig. 83]), and upon the wires, so arranged, meat and fish may be nicely broiled.

This is not a bad scheme, but the campers should have a little canvas bag in which they may pack the wires, otherwise the camper will sooner or later throw them away rather than be annoyed by losing one every now and then. [Figs. 84], [85], [86], [87] and [88] show a little

Skeleton Camp Stove

Ingeniously devised by a Boy Pioneer. Two pieces of telegraph wire are bent into a triangular form ([Figs. 84] and [85]), and the ends of the triangle at A are left open or unjoined, so that they may readily be slipped through the loops in the upright wires, B and C ([Fig. 87]), and thus form a take-a-part skeleton stove ([Fig. 86]). The young fellow from whom this device was obtained was at the time using an old tin kerosene-lamp ([Fig. 88A]) which he forced into the lower triangle of the stove ([Fig. 86]), and which the spring of the wire of the triangle held in position ([Fig. 88B]).

But if one is going to use the telegraph wire camp stove there is no necessity of carrying a lamp. The stove is made so that it may be taken apart and packed easily and the weight is trifling, but a lamp of any kind, or even a lantern, is a nuisance to carry.

The telegraph wire camp stove, however, may be made by bending the wires as shown in [Fig. 90], but the only object in so doing is to develop one's ingenuity, or for economy sake, otherwise one may purchase at the outfitter's folding wire camp broilers for a trifle, made on the same principle and with legs which may be thrust into the ground surrounding the fire, as in [Figs. 88] and [89], and, after the broiler is folded in the middle, the legs may be folded back so that it will all make a flat package. But leaving the artificialities of telegraph wire let us go back to the real thing again and talk about laying and lighting a genuine

Camp Cooking Fire

The more carefully the fire is planned and built the more easily will the cooking be accomplished. The first thing to be considered in laying one of these fires is the

Fire-dogs

Which in camp are the same as andirons in the open fire-places of our homes, and used for the same purpose. But domestic andirons are heavy steel bars usually with ornamental brass uprights in front and they would be most unhandy for one to carry upon a camping trip, while it would be the height of absurdity to think of taking andirons on a real hunting or exploring expedition. Therefore, we use green logs, sods or stones for fire-dogs in the wilderness. Frequently we have a back-log against which the fire-dog rests; this back-log is shown in [Fig. 91]. In this particular case it acts both as a back-log and a fire-dog. In the plan just above it ([Fig. 92]), there are two logs side by side which serve the double purpose of fire-dogs and for sides of the kitchen stove ([Fig. 93]). [Fig. 94] shows

The Lay of a Roasting Fire

Sometimes called the round fire. The back is laid up log-cabin style and the front is left open. In the open enclosure the fire is built by sticks being laid up like those in [Fig. 91]. The logs on all three sides radiate the heat and when the meat is hung in front of this, suspended from the end of the saster ([Fig. 74½]), it is easily and thoroughly roasted.

The Camp-fire

Is built with an eye to two purposes: one is to reflect heat into the open tent in front, and the other is to so construct it that it may last a long time. When one builds a camp-fire one wants to be able to roll up in one's blanket and sleep with the comforting conviction that the fire will last until morning.

The camp-fire is made with two fire-dogs pushed back against a back log ([Fig. 95A] and B), which form the foundation for the camp-fire. Two upright green sticks C ([Fig. 95]) are placed in a slanting position and supported by other sticks, D ([Fig. 95]), the top ends of which rest in notches cut in C stick at E ([Fig. 95]), and the bottom ends of which are thrust into the ground. Against the upright sticks C, and the logs F are heaped to form the back of the fire. The fire is then built on the two fire-dogs AA, and against the F logs, the latter will burn slowly and at the same time reflect the heat into the open tent front. This same fire is sometimes used for a baking fire, but the real fire for this purpose is made by the

Belmore Lay

[Figs. 96] and [97]. The first sketch shows the plan and the second the perspective view of the fire. The stove is made by two side logs or fire-dogs over which the fire is built and after it has fallen in, a mass of red hot embers, between the fire-dogs, two logs are laid across the dogs and one log is placed atop, so that the flame then comes up in front of them ([Fig. 97]) and sends the heat against the bread or bannock.

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At a convenient distance in front of the fuel logs, a waugan-stick is placed, reaching from one fire-dog to the other.

In wilderness work the frying pan is about the only domestic utensil carried and is used as a toaster, a baker, a broiler, a fryer, and a stew pan all combined. In it the Buckskin man and the Sourdough make their bread, and after the bread has been baked over the coals on the bottom, it is browned nicely on its top by tilting the pans in front of the fire and resting their handles against the waugan-stick ([Fig. 97]). I have seen the baking fire used from British Columbia to Florida, but it was the explorer, Captain Belmore Browne, who showed me the use of the waugan-stick in connection with the baking fire, hence I have called this the Belmore Lay.

A Frying Fire

Is built between two logs, two rows of stones, or sods ([Figs. 98], [99], and [100]); between these logs the fire is usually built, using the sides as fire-dogs, or the sticks may be placed in the turkey-lay ([Fig. 100]), so that the sticks themselves make a fire-dog and allow, for a time, a draught until the fire is burning briskly, after which it settles down to hot embers and is in the proper condition for frying. For be it known that too hot a griddle will set the grease or bacon afire, which may be funny under ordinary circumstances, but when one is shy of bacon it is a serious thing. The

Ordinary Baking Fire Lay

Is shown by [Fig. 101]. In this instance, the frying pans being used as reflector ovens are propped up by running sticks through the holes in their handles.

THE AURES

Is a rustic crane made exactly of the same form as are the cranes of the old-fashioned open fire-places, but ingeniously fashioned from a carefully selected green stick with two forks ([Fig. 102]). The long end of the main branch is severed at A ([Fig. 102]), care being taken not to cut through the green bark, B ([Fig. 102]). The bark of the latter, B, is then bent over the stub, A ([Fig. 102]), forming a loop, C ([Fig. 103]), which is lashed with green bark to the main stick and slipped over the upright, D ([Fig. 104]). The fork at E braces the crane and holds it in a horizontal position, resting on a stub left on D for that purpose. How practicable this thing may be depends altogether upon the time and skill one has at one's disposal. One would hardly use the Aures for a single night camp, but if one were to spend a week in the same camp, it would be well worth while and at the same time very interesting work to manufacture a neat Aures crane for the camp kitchen. The next step in camp kitchen fires will include what might be termed the pit fires, which will be described in the following chapter.

You have been told how to select the firewood, make the kindling and start a fire in the preceding chapter on how to build a fire; all you have to remember now is that in certain particulars all fires are alike; they all must have air to breathe and food to eat or they will not live.

In the case of the fire we do not call the air breath, but we give it a free circulation and call it a draught. Wood is the food that the fire eats and it must be digestible, a fire with indigestion is a fire fed with punky, damp wood carelessly thrown together in place of well-selected dry split wood which the fire can consume cleanly, digest evenly, and at the same time give out the greatest amount of heat.

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To produce a draught the fire must, of course, be raised from the ground, but do not build it in a careless manner like a pile of jack-straws. Such a fire may start all right, but when the supporting sticks have burned away it will fall in a heap and precipitate the cooking utensils into the flames, upsetting the coffee or teapot, and dumping the bacon "from the frying pan into the fire."

Be it man, woman, boy or girl, if he, she or it expects to be a camper, he, or she or it must learn to be orderly and tidy around camp. No matter how soiled one's clothes may be, no matter how grimy one's face may look, the ground around the camp-fire must be clean, and the cooking utensils and fire wood, pot-hooks and waugan-sticks, all orderly and as carefully arranged as if the military officer was expected the next minute to make an inspection.

All my readers must remember that By Their Camp-fire They Will be Known and "sized up" as the real thing or as chumps, duffers, tenderfeet and cheechakos, by the first Sourdough or old-timer who cuts their trails.