remaining embers, and in a short time coffee
was boiling and bacon was being fried, while Dick superintended the
making of a big batch of spider bread. It was the first meal that the
boys had cooked over a camp fire in several days, and they heartily
enjoyed every mouthful of it.

Breakfast over, the first task of the morning was to locate a suitable
place in which to pitch their temporary camp. Striking out to the
southwest, they spread out fanshaped, but not so far away that they
could not hear the sound of each other's voices. Zigzagging back and
forth, they searched for a spring. It was nearly a half of an hour
before their search was rewarded with success, when Dick's call brought
the three together.

Accidentally he had stumbled on an ideal camp site. It was one of those
natural clearings that are so often found in the densest forests. Nearby
was a clear spring, with cold water that trickled into an ever widening
forest stream.

The boys immediately decided that a day's search might not have provided
them with a better spot, and in a short time were bustling actively
about building their new camp. This consisted merely of throwing
together a brush lean-to.

The brush lean-to is the simplest sort of forest home. It is made by
erecting two poles, six to seven feet in height, and about six to eight
feet apart. In back of these, at a distance of some six feet, are placed
two more poles about one-half the height of the first pair. Four poles
are laid on the tops of these, secured by cutting a cleft in the tops,
and laid so as to form the frame work for the roof of the lean-to. The
next step in the building of such a habitation is to lay poles at an
interval of a foot or a foot and a half along the roof part of the
lean-to.

When erecting the uprights, care is taken to leave two or three bits of
branch project at intervals along the length of the poles. On these long
saplings are laid. The frame work of the lean-to is then complete, and
the finishing step consists of cutting great quantities of brush.

These pieces of brush are hung on the saplings that have been spread
across the frame work, the branches being crudely woven in and out of
each other. The front of the lean-to is generally left open. Some
woodsmen prefer to enclose all four sides, but the case of the brush
shack being built by the boys, the front part was left open, since their
idea was to build another lean-to directly opposite and about four feet