96 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



dear me, I sorry for this weather ! Come, Jem, we try 

 make camp right away/' It was a cheerless prospect, as 

 we threw off our bundles on the wet ground ; it was 

 quite dark, and, though nearly calm, the drizzling rain 

 still fell and pattered in large drops, falling heavily from 

 the tree-tops to the ground beneath. First we must 

 get up a good fire — no easy thing to an unpractised hand 

 in woods saturated by a week's rain. However, it can 

 be done, so seek we for some old stump of rotten wood, 

 easily knocked over and rent asunder, for we may, per- 

 haps, find some dry stuff in the heart. Joe has found 

 one, and, with two or three efforts, over it falls with a 

 heavy thud into the moss, and splits into a hundred 

 fragments. The centre is dry, and we return to the spot 

 fixed upon with as much as we can carry. The moss is 

 scraped away, and a little carefully-composed pile of the 

 dead wood being raised, a match is applied, and a cheer- 

 ful tongue of flame shoots up, and illumines the dark 

 woods, enabling us to see our way with ease. Now is the 

 anxious, time on which depends the success of the fire. 

 A hasty gathering of more dry wood is dexterously piled 

 on, some dead hard- wood trees are felled, and split with 

 the axe into convenient sticks, and in a few moments we 

 have a rousing fire, which will maintain its ground and 

 greedily consume anything that is heaped upon it, in spite 

 of the adverse element. A few young fir saplings are 

 then cut, and placed slantingly against the pole which 

 rests in the forks of two upright supports ; the canvas is 

 unrolled and stretched over the primitive frame, and our 

 camp has started into existence. The branches of the 

 young balsam firs, which form its poles, are well shaken 

 over the &:e, and disposed in layers beneath, to form the 



