46 THE PINE-TREE, OR 



fore, perhaps, echoed with the tones of the white man's voice. 

 The location for our nightly encampments are selected in time 

 to make the necessary arrangements for refreshment and repose, 

 before the darkness shuts down over the dense wilderness that 

 surrounds us. Selecting a proper site near some gushing spring, 

 or where a murmuring streamlet plays along its romantic little 

 channel, we pitch our tent, which formerly consisted of a slender 

 frame of little poles, slightly covered on the top and at each end 

 with long boughs, the front entirely open, before which burns 

 the watch-fire, by whose light the deep darkness of a forest night 

 is rendered more solemn and palpable. 



In some instances a large blanket is spread over the frame ; 

 and when there are good reasons to expect rain, we haul our 

 boat up, turn it bottom side up, and crawl beneath it, this prov- 

 ing a sure protection from the falling rain or dew. Of late, small 

 portable tent-coverings are used, which prove very convenient. 



Next the evening meal is prepared. Here the tea is thor- 

 oughly boiled, in the coffee-pot or tea-kettle, over the little fire. 

 A thin slice of salt pork is cut, and, running a sharp stick through 

 it, it is held over the fire and roasted, being withdrawn occa- 

 sionally to catch the drippings on a cake of pilot or ship bread. 

 This is a good substitute for buttered toast, the roasted pork mak- 

 ing an excellent rasher. Sometimes we ate the pork raw, dip- 

 ping it in molasses, which some relish ; and though the recital 

 may cause, in delicate and pampered stomachs, some qualms, 

 yet we can assure the uninitiated that, from these gross simples, 

 the hungry woodsman makes many a deliciou meal. After pipe 

 devotions (for little else ascends from forest altars, though we 

 have sometimes heard the voice of prayer even in the logging- 

 swamps), we throw our weary limbs upon our boughy couches 

 to seek repose in the slumbers of night. 



Sometimes our slumbers are disturbed by the shrill whooping 

 of the owl, whose residence is chosen in those lonely solitudes 



