“Mr. Barker,” Bill asked, “isn’t oak just as good as birch for our camp-fire. I have to carry the birch a long way.”
“No, Bill. Oak is no good when you can get birch. Green oak alone burns too slow. Dry oak is too hard to cut and burns too fast. Hickory and tamarack crackle and throw sparks into your blanket, so you wake up with your bed on fire.
“Birch is best for an all-night fire. It burns not too fast and not too slow, and it never shoots sparks into your bed.”
Tim soon had enough sticks and dead branches to last several days, so he helped Bill to carry the billets of birch to the fireplace. They were almost five feet long and about six inches in diameter.
“They will burn pretty slow, I fear,” the trapper remarked, “because the sap is in full flow and the wood feels soggy. Birch is most sappy at this time of the year.”
The night started well enough. It was warm and clear and the campers sat around the fire after supper and saw the stars come out, a few bright ones first and then the host of smaller ones and very small ones. From their high camp the boys could see the larger stars reflected in the river like faint streaks of trembling light. The river continued to rise and the bottom began to appear like a series of long winding lakes separated by long islands of dark forests. The lads gazed in wonder from the river to the sky and from the sky to the river. The Great Dipper stood out clearly.
“When does it rise and when does it set?” Tim asked.
“It is always there,” Tatanka answered. “It never rises and never sets, but the sun puts it out in the morning.”
The boys looked questioningly at the trapper. “That is true,” he confirmed Tatanka’s answer, “all the stars near the Polar Star never rise and never set. You can see them in the evening as soon as it is dark enough, and they shine till the rising sun makes them invisible. They just go round and round the Polar Star.”
Many faint chirping sounds were heard as the four campers sat near the camp-fire. The green birch burnt very slowly so that Tim had to put some of his dry sticks between the logs to keep a good steady fire. At all other times green birch starts quite readily from a small fire of dry sticks and then burns with an even glow. The ends sizzle with escaping moisture but the wood does not crackle and does not throw off any sparks.