Young Knights of the Empire Part 18

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY TOASTING-FORK.]

Then over the fire we had a crossbar of green wood (if you use old wood it will catch fire and drop your pot into the fire just as the stew is ready); it was supported on two stout, firmly-driven forked stakes, not the wobbly, rickety things which tenderfoots like to put up.

On the crossbar our kettle was hung by a pot-hook--just a hooked stick with a good notch cut in it to take the handle of the kettle.

Also on the crossbar in the sketch you see our tongs. These are most useful things for a camp-fire for lifting hot embers into the spot where you want them for giving extra heat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY AUTOMATIC KETTLE-HOLDER.]

The tongs are made from a green stick of hazel, or alder, or birch.

The stick should be about 2 1/2 to 3 feet long. At the middle you cut away a good bit of the wood from one side for about 4 inches. Then cut a number of small notches across the grain of the wood to make it still more bendable at the centre. Here's the side view of the centre part of your stick.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TONGS BEFORE AND AFTER BEING BENT.]

Then flatten the inner sides of your stick towards both ends, so that they get a better hold on things; bend the two ends together and there you have your tongs:

Next to the tongs, in the sketch, you see a small branch of dwarf fir.

This makes a hearth-brush, which is very useful for keeping the fire neat and clean.

The ordinary-looking stick leaning against the crossbar is an ordinary sort of stick, but a very useful one. He is the poker and pot-lifter.

He should be a stout green stick not easily burnt. Poplar is a difficult wood to burn, but then many old hands won't use it, because it is said to bring bad luck on the camp-fire where it is used; but that is an old wife's story, and I always use it when I get the chance.

If the soup gets upset, I look on it as my fault, not the fault of the poplar poker. In fact, whatever wood the poker is made of, one always seems to get a kind of affection for him. He is only an ordinary ugly, old half-burnt stick, but he is jolly useful and helpful.

On this side of the fire you see the pile of wood that has been collected for fuel. It is generally the right thing when in camp for each camper, when coming in, whether from bathing, or fis.h.i.+ng, or anywhere else, to bring with him some contribution to the wood-pile.

Different kinds of wood are needed for it.

First you want "punk" and "kindling"--that is, strips of birch-bark (which are better than paper for starting a fire), dry fibre from the inside of old dead trees, dry lichen or moss, anything that will start a fire. And also small, dry splinters, chips, and twigs to give the flame for lighting the bigger wood.

Secondly, you want lots of sticks, about 1/2 to 1 inch in thickness, for making your cooking-fire of hot embers, or you can get bigger logs, from which you can afterwards knock off, with our friend the poker, red-hot embers for the cooking.

Remember, you don't want a great blazing fire for cooking, but one that is all made of red-hot lumps.

For warming you up and giving a cheerful appearance to the camp at night you can have any amount of big, dry branches and logs--the drier the better for a good blaze.

Beyond the fire, in the sketch, you see our dining-table and seat.

This is a plank set across a hole in the ground, and the table is another plank beyond it. That is one way of making a dining-table.

Another way to make seats and tables in camp, especially in a country like this, where the forest is full of fallen timber, is to go and look out for a suitable pine tree with branches so placed that by a little lopping with an axe you can make a trestle like this:

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOME-MADE SEAT.]

Two such trestles can be made to support a few split saplings, or a number of stout straight rods, which can then be nailed, spiked, or lashed down with cross-battens to form a table; and more such trestles can form the seats.

On the right of the sketch you see three forked uprights. These formed our rack for holding fis.h.i.+ng-rods and landing-nets.

The little tufts hanging on this rack are bunches of heather.

Did you ever hear the yarn of the Boy Scout who, at his school examination in natural history, was asked, "What is heather?" He replied, "Well, sir, it is what we clean the cooking-pots with in camp."

He was quite right, though perhaps the examiner did not think so.

A few bunches of heather are most useful as dishcloths for cleaning dishes and pots. The reason why they are hanging on the rod rack is that they are handy for use in the scullery, which is that part of the river close by the rack.

In using a river you always have certain spots told off to the different uses. First and highest up-stream you get your drinking water. Next is your handwas.h.i.+ng place (not bathing place) and scullery for was.h.i.+ng plates and cooking-pots.

Below that is the refuse place, where you throw away sc.r.a.ps off the plates and from cooking-pots, and gut your fish. This should be where the stream will carry away the sc.r.a.ps and not slack water, where they will collect.

Of course, this throwing of refuse into the river only does in a wild country or where the river is big. In most English camps, all refuse should be buried in a pit or burnt.

I think that describes the whole of our camp.

Oh, no, there is still one article--and one of great importance Alongside the tent you see our camp besom or broom. It is made of a few birch twigs bound together. (The long thin roots of the fir-tree make very good cord.) This we used for sweeping the camp-ground every morning when we tidied up.

When we left our camp, the last thing we did after everything was packed ready for moving was to go round and tidy up the whole ground, and burn all the sc.r.a.ps, chips, and twigs that were left on the ground. So when we left it would have been difficult for a stranger to say that anybody had been camped there except for the place where the fire had been. But we left the cross-bars, pot-hooks, and wood-pile there, so that anyone coming after us would find them ready for his use.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FISH CARRIER]

But I expect they will all have rotted away before any one else comes that way to camp, for it is in an out-of-the-way corner where very few travellers come.

Another hook I might, mention is one used for carrying your fish when you have caught them. It is merely a twig cut from the nearest bush.

A BOAT VOYAGE

I had heard of a wonderful gorge in the mountains to the west of us, through which no man had ever pa.s.sed, and George wanted to go "reeper"

shooting on the mountain slopes in that direction. (A "reeper" is a Norwegian grouse.) So one fine morning found us starting in a boat to row down the great lake, which would bring us to the foot of the mountains.

This lake is about eight miles long, and one mile wide. Steep, forest-clad hillsides run down to the lake on both sides, and there are not half a dozen farms in sight of it, so we felt that we were getting into wilder parts as soon as we had started on our voyage.

The boats here are only made for one pair of sculls to be used at a time, so it came heavy on each of us in turn to have to row our well-loaded s.h.i.+p with its cargo of two men, two dogs (Bruce and Gordon), and all our luggage, guns, and ammunition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I Rigged up my oilskin coat as a sail, with George to act as mast and rigging."]

Luckily for me, before it came to my turn to row, a good breeze sprang up from behind us, so in a very short time I had rigged up my oilskin coat as a sail, with George to act as mast and rigging, and I took an oar to steer with.

In a very short time we found ourselves running along at double the pace that we could have got by rowing.

On these lakes, though there are plenty of boats, you never see one fitted with mast and sails for sailing. It is too dangerous; sudden squalls come down from the hills and catch the sails the wrong way or too violently, and so capsize the boat before the crew can do anything to save her.

Even on ordinary water, no one but a tenderfoot would sail a small boat with the "sheets" made fast; the men sailing the boat hold these in their hands ready to ease them up at any moment should a squall strike them. But the danger is much greater on a lake among mountains.

So you see a Scout needs to know something about sea scouting if he wants to get about successfully in a country where he has to make use of boats or canoes.

By using an oar as a rudder--which is also understood by Sea Scouts--we found we could sail to some extent across the wind as well as before it, and so we were able to get round headlands which came in our way without having to lower sail and take to rowing.