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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.