Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

THE CAMP-FIRE 227thick, or a pair of flat rocks, to support the fryingpan. The firewood will all drop to embers soonafter the pot boils. Toss out the smoking butts,leaving onl\' clear, glowing coals. Put your bedstickson either side, parallel and level. Set the panon them, and fry away. So, in twenty xTiinutesfrom the time you drove your stake, the meal will becooked.A man acting w^ithout system or forethought, ineven so simple a matter as this, can waste an hourin pottering over smoky mulch, or blistering himselfbefore a bonfire, and it will be an ill mess ofhalf-burned stuff that he serves in the end.Dinner Fire.—, First get in plenty of wood andkindling. If you can find two large flat rocks, orseveral small ones of even height, use them as andirons;other^^•ise lay down two short cuts off afive- or six-inch log,facing you and about three feetapart. On these rocks or billets lay two four-footlogs parallel, and several inches apart, as rests foryour utensils. Arrange the kindling between andunder them, with small sticks laid across the topof the logs, a couple of long ones lengthwise, thenmore short ones across, another pair lengthwise, andthicker short ones across. Then light it. Manyprefer to light the kindling at once and feed the firegradually; but I do as above, so as to have an evenglow under several pots at once, and then the stickswill all burn down to coals together.This is the usual way to build a cooking fire whenthere is no time to do better. The objection is thatthe supporting logs must be close enough togetherto hold up the pots and pans, and, being round, thisleaves too little space between them for the fire toheat their bottoms evenly; besides, a pot is liable toslip and topple over. A better way, if one hastime, is to hew both the inside surfaces and the topsof the logs flat. Space these supports close enoughtogether at one end for the narrowest pot and wideenough apart at the oth?r for the frying-Dan.