SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
327 
“Do not let the axe lie outdoors on a very cold night; 
the frost would make it brittle, so that the steel might 
shiver on the first knot jou struck the next morn- 
ing. . . ” 
The axe is a most dangerous tool, and a glancing 
blow may cripple one for life. 
1. Do not put your foot on a stick you are chopping. 
2. Always have in mind where a glancing blow may 
throw the axe, and keep your foot away from that 
danger. 
3. In splitting short sticks for kindling hold them by 
one end flat on the chopping block and strike the blade 
into the other end. 
4. Do not hold the stick on end in one hand while 
splitting it. 
5. Cut or split small wood on a chopping block or 
log. Never let the axe strike into the ground, as a 
hidden stone may ruin the edge. 
The Camp Fire 
“The forest floor is always littered with old leaves, 
dead sticks and fallen trees. During a drought this 
rubbish is so tinder-dry that a spark falling in it may 
start a conflagration; but through a great part of the 
year the leaves and sticks that lie flat on the ground 
are too moist, at least on their under side, to ignite 
readily. If we rake together a pile of leaves, cover it 
higgledy-piggledy with dead twigs and branches picked 
up at random, and set a match to it, the odds are that 
it will result in nothing but a quick blaze that soon dies 
down to a smudge. Yet that is the way most of us 
tried to make our first outdoor fires. 
“One glance at a camper’s fire tells what kind of a 
woodsman he is. It is quite impossible to prepare a 
good meal over a heap of smoking chunks, a fierce blaze, 
