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How to Camp Out by John Mead Gould
page 53 of 125 (42%)
heating-arrangement is to give it draught enough without letting out
smoke, and this you cannot easily arrange with rocks. In digging your
trench and fireplace, make them so that the rain shall not flood them.


FIREPLACE.

If flat rocks and mud are plenty, you can perhaps build a fireplace at
the door of your tent (outside, of course), and you will then have
something both substantial and valuable. Fold one flap of the door as
far back as you can, and build one side of the fireplace against the
pole,[11] and the other side against, or nearly over to, the corner of
the tent. Use large rocks for the lower tiers, and try to have all three
walls perpendicular and smooth inside. When up about three feet, or as
high as the flap of the tent will allow without its being scorched, put
on a large log of green wood for a mantle, or use an iron bar if you
have one, and go on building the chimney. Do not narrow it much: the
chimney should be as high as the top of the tent, or eddies of wind will
blow down occasionally, and smoke you out. Barrels or boxes will do for
the top, or you can make a cob-work of split sticks well daubed with
mud. All the work of the fireplace and chimney must be made air-tight by
filling the chinks with stones or chips and mud. When done, fold and
confine the flap of the tent against the stonework and the mantle;
better tie than nail, as iron rusts the cloth. Do not cut the tent
either for this or any other purpose: you will regret it if you do. Keep
water handy if there is much woodwork; and do not leave your tent for a
long time, nor go to sleep with a big fire blazing.

If you have to bring much water into camp, remember that two pails carry
about as easily as a single one, provided you have a hoop between to
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