hey'd be the stones used for giving the sick one a steam bath."

"Well, what would they do if there were no stones?"

"Ye mean in the woods?"

"Yes, or smooth prairie."

"Well, I pretty near forget, it's so long ago, but le's see now," and
Yan worried Caleb and Caleb threshed his memory till they got out a
general scheme, or Indian code, though Caleb was careful to say that
"some Injuns done it differently."

[Illustration: INDIAN SIGNS]

Yan must needs set about making a signal fire at once, and was
disappointed to find that a hundred yards away the smoke could not be
seen above the tree-tops, till Caleb showed him the difference between
a clear fire and a smoke or smudge fire.

"Begin with a clear fire to get the heat, then smother it with green
grass and rotten wood. There, now you see the difference," and a great
crooked, angling pillar of smoke rolled upward as soon as the grass
and punk began to sizzle in the glow of embers.

"I bet ye kin see that ten miles away if ye'r on a high place to look
for it."

"I bet I could see it twenty miles," chirped in Guy.

"Mr. Clark, were you ever lost?" continued the tireless asker.

"Why, course I was, an' more than once. Every one that goes in the
woods is bound to get lost once in awhile."

"What--do the Indians?"

"Of course! Why not? They're human, an' I tell you when you hear a man
brag that he never was lost, I know he never was far from his mother's
apron string. Every one is bound to get lost, but the real woodsman
gets out all right; that's the difference."

"Well, what would you do if you got lost?"

"Depends on where. If it was a country that I didn't know, and I had
friends in camp, after I'd tried my best I'd jest set right down and
make two smoke fires. 'Course, if I was alone I'd try to make a bee
line in the likeliest direction, an' this is easy to make if ye kin
see the sun and stars, but stormy weather 'tain't possible. No man kin
do it, an' if ye don't know the country ye have to follow some stream;
but I'm sorry for ye if ever ye have to do that, for it's the worst
walking on earth. It will surely bring ye out some place--that is, it
will keep ye from walking in a circle--but ye can't make more than
four or five miles a day on it."

[Illustration: "The Two Smokes"]

"Can't you get your direction from moss on the tree trunks?"

"_Naw!_ Jest try it an' see; moss on the north side of a tree
and rock; biggest branches on the south of a tr