16 WAITING IN THE WILDERNESS 



several miles from camp I thought to spend the 

 night in the den. The gravelly floor was per- 

 fectly clean except for a few bits of dried skin 

 off his feet and some hair, but the den was too 

 smelly. So out I went to spend the night in the 

 open without my sleeping bag. A short distance 

 from the den I found a cave-like place between 

 large rocks. Cutting a number of small tree 

 limbs I stuffed these into the larger openings 

 between rocks and shut off the wind in that di- 

 rection. Then using a snowshoe I scooped out 

 the snow and started a small fire burning all 

 over the floor of the cave to warm and dry it. 



I was in the edge of a forest of fire-killed trees 

 and there was plenty of wood. Although it was 

 rather snowy handling I gathered a quantity. I 

 laid down three short logs in front of the opening, 

 across these laid smaller ones, and on top of these 

 piled still smaller ones, with kindling at the top. 



Pushing the small fire to the front I set fire 

 to this big pile at the top so that it would burn 

 slowly. On the fire-warmed ground I slept 

 three hours without wakening. Then the fire 

 had pretty well burned down; my thermometer 

 said it was ten below zero. But there was no 

 air stirring and the night was surprisingly calm. 

 Throwing on more wood I had another sleep. 

 On awakening I started to trail the bear. 



I did not have a gun, but the wilds are one of 



