However tempting a smooth rock may look as a convenient spot on which a fire may be built, do not fail to spread a few shovels of sand, earth or clay on the stone as a fire bed, for the damp rock on becoming heated may generate steam and either expand with some violence or burst like a bomb-shell and scatter far and wide the fragments, even endangering the lives of those gathered around the fire.
The natives of Australia take dry logs, 6 ft. or more in length, and laying them down 3 ft. or 4 ft. apart, set them on fire in several places. Letting shorter logs meet them from the outside, and placing good-sized pebbles around them, they then stretch themselves on the ground and sleep between the two lines of fire, and when the wood is consumed the stones continue for some time to radiate the heat they have previously absorbed. Many tribes of American Indians have their own special fashion of fire building, so that a deserted camp fire will not infrequently reveal the identity of the tribe by which it was made.
The camper's old method of making a slow fire was also used by housekeepers for their open fire-places, and consisted of placing three logs with their glowing ends together.
As the ends of the logs burned off the logs were pushed forward, this being continued until the logs were entirely consumed. Three good logs thus arranged will burn all day or all night, but someone must occasionally push them so that their ends come together, when they send their heat from one to the other, backwards and forwards, and thus keep the embers hot (Fig. 53). But who wants to sit up all night watching a fire? I prefer to use the modern method and sleep all night.
Sharpen the ends of two strong heavy stakes each about 5 ft. in length, cut a notch in the rear of each near the top, for the support or back to key into, drive the stakes into the ground about 6 ft. apart. Place three logs one on the other, making a log wall for the back of your fire-place. Next take two shorter logs and use them for fire-dogs, and on these lay another log and the arrangement will be complete. A fire of this kind will burn during the longest night and if skillfully made will cause little trouble. The fire is fed by placing fuel between the front log and the fire-back.
When the greatest elevations of land are selected the smoke signals may be seen at a distance of from twenty to fifty miles. Signal fires are usually made with dry leaves, grass and weeds or "wiry willows," balsam boughs, pine and cedar boughs, because such material produces great volumes of smoke and may be seen at a long distance. The Apaches have a simple code which might well be adopted by all outdoor people. According to J. W. Powell, Director of U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, the Indians use but three kinds of signals, each of which consists of columns of smoke.
Three or more smoke columns reads impending danger from flood, fire or foe. This signal may be communicated from one camp to another, so as to alarm a large section of the country in remarkably quick time. The greater the haste desired the greater the number of smokes used. These fires are often so hastily made that they may resemble puffs of smoke caused by throwing heaps of grass and leaves upon the embers again and again.
"This signal is generally made by producing one continuous column and signifies attention for several purposes, viz., when a band had become tired of one locality, or the grass may have been consumed by the ponies, or some other cause necessitated removal, or should an enemy be reported which would require further watching before a decision as to future action would be made. The intention or knowledge of anything unusual would be communicated to neighboring bands by causing one column of smoke to ascend."
"When a removal of camp has been made, after the signal for Attention has been given, and the party have selected a place where they propose to remain until there may be a necessity or desire for their removal, two columns of smoke are made, to inform their friends that they propose to remain at that place. Two columns are also made at other times during a long continued residence, to inform the neighboring bands that a camp still exists, and that all is favorable and quiet."
Therefore, Three or more smokes in daylight, or Three or more flames at night, is a signal of alarm, One smoke a signal for attention, Two smokes tells us that all is well, peaceful and happy.
The usual way of signalling with smoke is to make a smudge fire of browse or grass and use a blanket as an extinguisher. By covering the fire with the blanket and suddenly removing it, a large globular puff of smoke is made to suddenly appear, and is certain to attract the attention of anyone who happens to be looking toward the site of the fire.
If it is practical it is naturally better to shovel away the snow, but personally I have never done this except in case of newly fallen snow. Old snow which is more or less frozen to the ground may be tramped down until it is hard and then covered with a corduroy of sticks for a hearth (Figs. 55 and 56) or with bark (Fig. 57) and on top of this flooring it is a simple matter to build a fire. Use the turkey-"lay" in which one of the sticks acts the part of the fire-dog (Fig. 56).
Don't fail to collect a generous supply of small wood (Fig. 58) and then start the fire as already directed (Fig. 58).
The reader will note that in all these illustrations (Figs. 55, 56, and 57), there is either a log or stone or a bank for a back to the fire-place. When everything is covered with snow it is perfectly safe to use a log for a back (Fig. 56) but on other occasions the log may smoulder for a week and then start a forest fire.
No one but an arrant, thoughtless, selfish Cheechako will use a live growing tree against which to build a fire. A real woodcraft knows that a fire can ruin in a few minutes a mighty forest tree that God himself cannot replace inside of from forty to one hundred years.
While we are talking of building fires in the snow, it may be well to remark that an uninhabitable and inaccessible swamp in the summer is often the best of camping places in the winter time. The water freezes and falls lower and lower, leaving convenient shelves of ice (Fig. 57) for one's larder. The dense woods and brush offer a splendid barrier to the winter winds. Fig. 59 shows an arrangement for a winter camp-fire.
Spread a piece of bark on the ground to serve as a hearth on which to start your fire. Seek dry wood by splitting the log and taking the pieces from the center of the wood, keep the wood under cover of your tent, poncho, coat or blanket. Also hold a blanket or some similar thing over the fire while you are lighting it. After the blaze begins to leap and the logs to burn freely, it will practically take a cloud-burst to extinguish it.
No matter where the old camper may be, no matter how long a time may have elapsed since last he slept in the open, no matter how high or low a social or official position he may now occupy, it takes but one whiff of the smoke of an open fire, or one whiff of the aroma of frying bacon, to send him back again to the lone trail. In imagination he will once more be hovering over his little camp-fire in the desert, under the shade of the gloomy pines, mid the snows of Alaska, in the slide rock of the Rockies or mid the pitch pines of the Alleghenies, as the case may be.
That faint hint in the air of burning firewood or the delicious odor of the bacon, for the moment, will not only wipe from his vision his desk, his papers and his office furniture, but also all the artificialities of life. Even the clicking of the typewriter will turn into the sound of clicking hoofs, the streets will become canyons, and the noise of traffic the roar of the mountain torrent!
There is no use talking about it, there is no use arguing about it, there is witchcraft in the smell of the open fire, and all the mysteries and magic of the Arabian Nights dwell in the odor of frying bacon.
Some years ago Mr. Arthur Rice, the Secretary of the Camp-fire Club of America, and Patrick Cleary, a half-breed Indian, with the author, became temporarily separated from their party in the Northern wilds. They found themselves on a lonely wilderness lake surrounded by picture mountains, and dotted with tall rocky islands covered with Christmas trees, giving the whole landscape the appearance of the scenery one sometimes sees painted on drop-curtains for the theatre. Everything in sight was grand, everything was beautiful, everything was built on a generous scale, everything was big, not forgetting the voyagers' appetites!
Unfortunately the provisions were in the missing canoe; diligent search, however, in the bottom of Patrick Cleary's ditty bag disclosed three small, hard, rounded lumps, which weeks before might have been bread; also a handful of tea mixed with smoking tobacco, and that was all! There was no salt, no butter, no pepper, no sugar, no meat, no knives, no forks, no spoons, no cups, no plates, no saucers and no cooking utensils; the party had nothing but a few stone-like lumps of bread and the weird mixture of tea and tobacco with which to appease their big appetites. But in the lake the trout were jumping, and it was not long before the hungry men had secured a fine string of spotted beauties to add to their menu.
Under the roots of a big spruce tree, at the bottom of a cliff on the edge of the lake, a fountain of cold crystal water spouted from the mossy ground. Near this they built a fire while Mr. Rice fashioned a little box of birch bark, filled it with water and placed it over the hot embers by resting the ends of the box on fire-dogs of green wood. Into the water in the birch bark vessel was dumped the tea (and—also tobacco)!
To the amazement and delight of the Indian half-breed, the tea was soon boiling. Meanwhile the half-breed toasted some trout until the fish were black, this being done so that the charcoal or burnt skins might give a flavor to the fish, and in a measure compensate for the lack of salt. The hunks of bread were burned until they were black, not for flavor this time, but in order that the bread might be brittle enough to allow a man to bite into it with no danger of breaking his teeth in the attempt.
To-day it seems to the author that that banquet on that lonely lake, miles from the nearest living human being, was more delicious and more satisfying than any of the feasts of Belshazzar he has since attended in the wonder city of New York.
Therefore, when taking up the subject of cooking fire and camp kitchen, he naturally begins with
If any one of the camp pot-hooks had been drawn in the old-time writing book or copybook, it would have brought down the wrath (with something else) of the old-fashioned school-master, upon the devoted head of the offending pupil. For these pot-hooks are not regular in form and the shape and designs largely depend upon the available material from which they are fashioned, and not a little upon the individual fancy of the camper. For instance the one known as
When the waugan-stick has been thrust through the loop of the gallow-crook, the former is replaced in the crotches of the two forked sticks, as in Fig. 63, and the pot or kettle, pail or bucket, is hooked on to the lower fork. You will note that the lower fork is upon the opposite side of the main stick from that from which the switch prong of the upper fork springs. This arrangement is not necessary to make the pot balance properly over the fire; the same rule holds good for all the other pot-hooks.[D]
In a book of this kind the details of all these designs are given not because any one camper is expected to use them all, but because there are times when any one of them may be just the thing required. It is well, however, to say that the most practicable camp pot-hooks are the pot-claw and the hake.
In making a pot-claw care should be taken to cut the notch on the opposite side of the forked branch, and at the other end of the claw, deep enough to hold the handle of the cooking utensils securely.
While the author was on an extended trip in the blustering North land his party had a pot-claw as crooked as a yeggman, and as knotty as a problem in higher mathematics. While there can be no doubt that one of the party made this hoodoo affair it has never yet been decided to whom the credit belongs—because of the innate modesty of the men no one claims the honor. This misshapen pot-claw was responsible for spilling the stew on several occasions, not to speak of losing the boiled rice. Luckily one of the party was a stolid Indian, one a consistent member of the Presbyterian church, one a Scout and one a member of the Society of Friends, consequently the air was not blue and the only remarks made were, "Oh my!" "Bless my soul!" and "Gee willikens!"
The cook in despair put the wicked thing in the fire with muttered hints that the fire might suggest the region where such pot-hooks belong. While it burned and its evil spirit dissolved in smoke, the Indian made a new pot-claw, a respectable pot-claw with a straight character, and a more secure notch. This one by its benign presence brought peace and good will to the camp and showed the necessity of taking pains and using care in the manufacture of even so lowly a thing as a pot-claw.
The camp pot-hooks should be of various lengths; long ones to bring the vessels near the fire where the heat is more intense; short ones to keep the vessels further from the fire so that their contents will not cook but only keep warm; and medium ones for simmering or slow cooking.
The saster is a long pole used in the same manner as the speygelia. Meat is suspended from it in front of the fire to roast (Figs. 74½ and 75), or kettles are suspended from it over the fire to boil water (Fig. 74).
Many campers are fond of making for themselves cooking utensils improvised from ordinary telegraph wire. In the old time open fire-places of our grandsires' kitchen there were trammels consisting of chains hanging down the chimney on which things were hooked by short pot-hooks to hang over the fire; there were also rakens made of bands of iron with holes punched in them for the attachment of short iron pot-hooks (Fig. 76). With these ancient implements in their minds, some ingenious campers manufacture themselves rakens and short pot-hooks from telegraph wire (Fig. 77). By twisting the wire in a series of short loops, each loop can be made to serve as a place for attaching the pot-hooks as did the holes in the old-fashioned rakens. The advantages they claim for the telegraph wire raken are lightness and its possibility of being readily packed.
On one of these rakens one may hook the pail as high or as low as one chooses (Fig. 78); not only that but one may (Fig. 79) put a small pail inside the larger one, where later it is full of water, for the purpose of cooking cereal without danger of scorching it.
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.
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
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.
The telegraph wire camp stove, however, may be made by bending the wires as shown in Fig. 90, but the only object in so doing is to develop one's ingenuity, or for economy sake, otherwise one may purchase at the outfitter's folding wire camp broilers for a trifle, made on the same principle and with legs which may be thrust into the ground surrounding the fire, as in Figs. 88 and 89, and, after the broiler is folded in the middle, the legs may be folded back so that it will all make a flat package. But leaving the artificialities of telegraph wire let us go back to the real thing again and talk about laying and lighting a genuine
The more carefully the fire is planned and built the more easily will the cooking be accomplished. The first thing to be considered in laying one of these fires is the
The camp-fire is made with two fire-dogs pushed back against a back log (Fig. 95A and B), which form the foundation for the camp-fire. Two upright green sticks C (Fig. 95) are placed in a slanting position and supported by other sticks, D (Fig. 95), the top ends of which rest in notches cut in C stick at E (Fig. 95), and the bottom ends of which are thrust into the ground. Against the upright sticks C, and the logs F are heaped to form the back of the fire. The fire is then built on the two fire-dogs AA, and against the F logs, the latter will burn slowly and at the same time reflect the heat into the open tent front. This same fire is sometimes used for a baking fire, but the real fire for this purpose is made by the
Figs. 96 and 97. The first sketch shows the plan and the second the perspective view of the fire. The stove is made by two side logs or fire-dogs over which the fire is built and after it has fallen in, a mass of red hot embers, between the fire-dogs, two logs are laid across the dogs and one log is placed atop, so that the flame then comes up in front of them (Fig. 97) and sends the heat against the bread or bannock.
At a convenient distance in front of the fuel logs, a waugan-stick is placed, reaching from one fire-dog to the other.
In wilderness work the frying pan is about the only domestic utensil carried and is used as a toaster, a baker, a broiler, a fryer, and a stew pan all combined. In it the Buckskin man and the Sourdough make their bread, and after the bread has been baked over the coals on the bottom, it is browned nicely on its top by tilting the pans in front of the fire and resting their handles against the waugan-stick (Fig. 97). I have seen the baking fire used from British Columbia to Florida, but it was the explorer, Captain Belmore Browne, who showed me the use of the waugan-stick in connection with the baking fire, hence I have called this the Belmore Lay.
You have been told how to select the firewood, make the kindling and start a fire in the preceding chapter on how to build a fire; all you have to remember now is that in certain particulars all fires are alike; they all must have air to breathe and food to eat or they will not live.
In the case of the fire we do not call the air breath, but we give it a free circulation and call it a draught. Wood is the food that the fire eats and it must be digestible, a fire with indigestion is a fire fed with punky, damp wood carelessly thrown together in place of well-selected dry split wood which the fire can consume cleanly, digest evenly, and at the same time give out the greatest amount of heat.