CHAPTER XIX

HOW TO CAMP OUT--THINGS EVERY CAMPER SHOULD KNOW


Camping out is not in itself a game, but it would be hard to imagine a
more delightful way for the boy or the man who has still something of
the boy in him to spend a vacation.

Of course, boys in the country have more opportunities to learn about
camping than boys living in the city. One thing is that they are more
familiar with tools, but city boys are perhaps more eager for the
life, as it is so primitive and in such striking contrast to their
usual way of living.

Before going into camp there are many things for the camper to learn
if he does not know how, and one of these things is how to make a
fire. If one has matches, kindling and wood there is no trick in
making a camp fire, but there is a good trick in making a fire where
there are no matches and the wood is green or wet. Of course, you know
that men built fires in houses and camps many, many hundreds of years
ago, but you may not know that up to one hundred years ago matches,
which are now so cheap and so abundant, were practically unknown. How,
then, did they start fires?

Our own Indians get fire--I have seen them do it--by rotating a hard