you wish to get up a shelter-tent on fifteen minutes'
notice, cut and sharpen a twelve-foot pole as for the Indian camp,
stick one end in the ground, the other in the rough bark of a large
tree--hemlock is best--hang the cloth on the pole, fasten the sides to
rods and the rods to the ground with inverted crotches, and your
shelter-tent is ready for you to creep under.

The above description of the shanty-tent may seem a trifle elaborate,
but I hope it is plain. The affair weighs just three pounds and it
takes a skillful woodsman about three hours of easy work to put it in
the shape described. Leaving out some of the work and only aiming to
get it up in square shape as quickly as possible, I can put it up in an
hour. The shanty as it should be, is shown in the illustration very
fairly. And the shape of the cloth when spread out, is shown in the
diagram. On the whole, it is the best form of close-side tent I have
found. It admits of a bright fire in front, without which a forest camp
is just no camp at all to me. I have suffered enough in close, dark,
cheerless, damp tents.

More than thirty years ago I became disgusted with the clumsy,
awkward, comfortless affairs that, under many different forms, went
under the name of camps. Gradually I came to make a study of "camping
out." It would take too much time and space, should I undertake to
describe all the different styles and forms I have tried. But I will
mention a few of the best and worst.

The old Down East "coal cabin" embodied the principle of the Indian
camp. The frame was simply two strong crotches set firmly in the ground
at a distance of eight feet apart and interlocking at top. These
supported a stiff ridge-pole fifteen feet long, the small end sharpened
and set in the ground. Refuse boards, shooks, stakes, etc., were placed
thickly from the ridge-pole to the ground; a thick layer of straw was
laid over these and the whole was covered a foot thick with earth and
sods, well beaten down. A stone wall five feet high at back and sides
made a most excellent fireplace; and these cabins were weather-proof
and warm, even in zero weather. But they were too cumbersome and
included too much labor for the ordinary hunter and angler. Also, they
were open to the objection, that while wide enough in front, they ran
down to a dismal, cold peak at the far end. Remembering, however, the
many pleasant winter nights I had passed with the coal-burners, I
bought a supply of oil-c