fireplace, assist it with more bark, and gradually build up, twig by
twig, stick by stick, from the first pin-point of flame, all the fire
you are going to need. It will not be much. The little hot blaze
rising between the parallel logs directly against the aluminium of your
utensils will do the business in a very short order. In fifteen
minutes at most your meal is ready. And you have been able to attain
to hot food thus quickly because you were prepared.

In case of very wet weather the affair is altered somewhat. If the
rain has just commenced, do not stop to clear out very thoroughly, but
get your tent up as quickly as possible, in order to preserve an area
of comparatively dry ground. But if the earth is already soaked, you
had best build a bonfire to dry out by, while you cook over a smaller
fire a little distance removed, leaving the tent until later. Or it
may be well not to pitch the tent at all, but to lay it across slanting
supports at an angle to reflect the heat against the ground.

It is no joke to light a fire in the rain. An Indian can do it more
easily than a white man, but even an Indian has more trouble than the
story-books acknowledge. You will need a greater quantity of birch
bark, a bigger pile of resinous dead limbs from the pine trees, and
perhaps the heart of a dead pine stub or stump. Then, with infinite
patience, you may be able to tease the flame. Sometimes a small dead
birch contains in the waterproof envelope of its bark a species of
powdery, dry touchwood that takes the flame readily. Still, it is easy
enough to start a blaze--a very fine-looking, cheerful, healthy blaze;
the difficulty is to prevent its petering out the moment your back is
turned.

But the depths of woe are sounded and the limit of patience reached