“All right, that’s a go. Now what will you allow me to have?” inquired Dick.
“Nothing at all; you’ve got to use Nature’s weapons all the time,” promptly answered Phil.
“No, that’s hardly fair,” protested Nate. “The average camper that got lost would have his knife, and he’d likely have a hatchet stuck in his belt. ’Tain’t likely, though, that he’d have any food with him; and if he were only out for a short stroll, and got twisted in direction, and then lost, he wouldn’t have his gun with him. Suppose we put it this way: You’re in the woods lost, and through an accident you lost your pack and rifle. That leaves you just as I’ve seen you three or four times. You’d have your hatchet and your lariat and that’s all. We’ll even make it easier than that. You can go in as you are now. I don’t know what you have in your pockets, so we’ll let you have that much. You can’t have your matches, though. Say you fell out of a canoe when you lost your pack and rifle, and wet your matches so they are useless. That makes it harder.”
All agreed that this was a fair proposal, and Dick planned to start the next morning. He determined to take to the Forest Reserve, first because he wanted to see it, and second because that seemed to offer the best place to try the experiment. Dick agreed to blaze a trail from where he started so that in case of accident he could be followed.
Next morning all went with him to the river to see him off, and Garry paddled him across the river, using a canoe that he hired from a youngster who was passing that way. They agreed that one of the boys should come to the river at noon and at six o’clock every day to see if he would be back, having concluded the experiment was a failure.
Dick fell into the spirit of his own adventure, and walked half a day into the forest, blazing a trail as he went, and occasionally leaving some of the usual trail signs and messages such as all scouts and woodmen know. Then he pretended that he was lost and started in to make plans for his living. He cast about until he found a brook and set at his first plan.
The first thing was a fire, and he had no matches. That meant using the Indian method of firemaking. The plan that he was to have anything that was in his pockets the night before stood him in good stead, for along with a few minor articles was a stout piece of cord.
He procured some dry moss and tindery substance and made a little heap of it. Then he found a piece of dry bark, and inserted this in the tinder after having made a small hole with the point of his knife. Next he procured a dry stick and sharpened this at both ends. Now all he would have to do was insert the point into the hole in the bark, and twist it briskly between his palms until it started the blaze. This process, however, takes quite a bit of time, owing to the fact that a great speed cannot be attained, hence there is less friction, and so the tinder will not ignite quickly.
There was a way that this could be done quicker and easier. He found a flat piece of wood and bored a small hole in that. Then he searched until he found a crooked stick, and tied his cord loosely at each end. Making a loop in the cord, he slipped it over the stick with the pointed ends. Now all that needed to be done was to put one end in the tinder, and cap the other end with the piece of wood. Holding this bit of wood in one hand, and the “bow” in the other, he sawed back and forth, the string causing the stick to revolve back and forth with great rapidity.
In a very few minutes he had his fire going briskly. Now the next question was something to eat. He heard a slight splash in the stream near him, and thought at once of trout.