With Gun ^ Rod in Canada 



stormed. We used the " tarp " for covering the pack 

 when travelling. Never carrying an axe with a pack- 

 outfit, the camp-fires were small, and supplied only by 

 such fuel as we could obtain without chopping. That 

 method of camp life seemed quite satisfactory at the 

 time as well as comfortable. 



Now, when Tom made camp for me that night on the 

 Kejimkujik River, he seemed to have all the comforts 

 of home packed away in his seventeen-foot canvas canoe. 

 First he selected a nice, grassy, level tenting-ground; 

 then he produced a small eighteen-pound balloon-silk 

 lean-to tent with a two-foot wall in the back, and which 

 was about seven feet square. With a sharp axe it seemed 

 no time at all before he had this tent staked out flat on 

 the ground. With the ridge-pole supported by a couple 

 of forked sticks together, Tom and I raised it. It made 

 as snug a little shelter as one would wish to sleep in. 

 Once again the axe came into play, and Tom appeared 

 with an armful of dry pine chips and started a fire. He 

 produced a folding open tin oven and a small mixing- 

 pan, and proceeded to make some beautiful tea biscuit. 

 I cleaned the trout, rolled them in corn meal, and fried 

 them in bacon fat. In the meantime Tom prepared 

 another frying-pan full of sliced potatoes and onions. 

 A jar of fine strawberry jam, put up by his good wife, 

 completed the meal. Then came the surprise of my 

 sweet, young life. I had been surreptitiously looking 

 around for a coffee-pot and the coffee to put in the same. 

 Not being successful in uncovering this necessary adjunct 

 to the peaceful and enjoyable life of an outdoor man, 

 I spotted a big black open pail hanging over the fire 

 on the end of a stick, the other end of which was stuck 

 in the ground and partially supported by a small boulder. 

 This method of heating dish-water was new to me, for in 

 the West we invariably used two forked sticks stuck 



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