Willow Clump Island in Winter.

We brought no tent with us, as we expected to take up our quarters in the straw hut.  When we reached the hut we hardly recognized it.  It was almost completely covered with snow and looked like an Eskimo house.  The snow had drifted well up over the north side, completely closing the entrance.  We had to set to work at once with a shovel and open up a passageway, and then we had to shovel out a large pile of snow that had drifted into the hut from the open doorway.

Kindling a Camp Fire.

In the meantime Jack scoured the island for some dry wood.  In this he was not very successful, because everything was covered with snow, and when he tried to kindle a fire in the open space in front of our hut he found the task an exceedingly difficult one.  Unfortunately we forgot to bring the oil stove with us, and the prospect of something warm to eat was exceedingly remote.  We hadn’t yet learned the trick of building a camp fire in wet weather.  After exhausting our stock of paper Fred and I started over to Lumberville for several newspapers and a can of kerosene.  We went to old Jim Halliday’s, who had befriended us on one or two occasions the previous summer, and made known to him our troubles.

“What!  A can of oil to build yer fire with?  Well, ye won’t git it from me.  I know a man as got blowed up apourin’ oil on a fire.  Why, shucks, boys, you don’t need no oil ner paper nuther on that there island.  Its chuck-full of silver birch trees, and there ain’t no better kindlin’ than birch bark.”

Birch bark!  Why, yes, why hadn’t we thought of that?  We had used it for torches the summer before and knew how nicely it burned.  So back we skated to camp, and then, peeling off a large quantity of bark from the birch trees around us, we soon had a rousing big fire in front of the hut.

The Outdoor Fireplace.

[Illustration:  Fig. 197.  An Outdoor Cooking Fire.]

But there were more things to be learned about open fires.  In our summer outing Jack had done most of his cooking on a kerosene stove, and he soon found that it was a very different matter to cook over an unsheltered fire.  The heat was constantly carried hither and thither by the gusts of wind, so that he could scarcely warm up his saucepans.  We had to content ourselves with cold victuals for the first meal, but before the next meal time came around we had learned a little more about fire building.  Two large logs were placed about 10 inches apart, and the space between them was filled in with pieces of bark and small twigs and sticks.  The back of the fireplace was closed with stones.  One touch of a match was enough to kindle the fire, and in a moment it blazed up beautifully.  The logs at the sides and the stones at the back prevented the wind from scattering the flames in all directions, and a steady draft poured through the open end of the fireplace and up through the heart of the fire.  The side logs were so close together that our cooking utensils could be supported directly on them.