For the Benefit of City Nimrods 



next day gave Jack the working principles of canoe hand- 

 ling. Before the trip was over he " allowed " that he 

 " could put her anywheres in any water." 



Having been a sea captain and in the habit of depending 

 largely upon his own judgment, Jack showed woeful 

 stubbornness about another vital matter. A day or 

 two after the canoe incident we were tenting in the woods 

 on the edge of another lake. It had been very dry and 

 windy. The woods were like tinder, and we all had been 

 most careful about putting out our camp-fires before 

 going hunting, in spite of Jack's ridicule of our " fussi- 

 ness." While the guides were " driving " a large bog, 

 they had left Jack to watch for moose on a certain run- 

 way. Being cold, he lit a small fire. As no game showed 

 up, one of the returning guides shouted to him from a 

 distance to go on back to the tents. The fuel Jack had 

 been using was bone dry and made no smoke, so the 

 guide did not notice that our friend had built a fire. 

 Jack made his way back to camp, indifferently leaving 

 the fire smouldering. About midnight we all woke up 

 coughing. There was a high wind blowing and the 

 smoke was dense. The sky was lighted up dead to wind- 

 ward of us, and it was a wild scramble to get our tents 

 down, our canoes launched, and our supplies tumbled 

 pell-mell into them. I do not think that any of us will 

 ever forget that desperate midnight paddle, racing before 

 a wicked, foaming sea with black, driving smoke and 

 showers of sparks. In landing on the opposite rocky 

 shores of the lake, we all but wrecked our canoes in the 

 wind lop. As the fire was confined between two lakes, 

 it burned less than a hundred acres of second-growth 

 timber with a possible damage of $1,000.00. Jack 

 settled. 



Moral: Do not light any fires upon other people's 

 property unless accompanied by a licensed guide, or 



57 



