ead my blanket in a well-made bark shanty, which a signboard in
black and white said was the "Guides' Camp."

And this camp was a very popular institution. Here it was that every
evening, when night had settled down on forest and lake, the guests of
the hotel would gather to lounge on the bed of fresh balsam browse,
chat, sing and enjoy the huge campfire.

No woodland hotel will long remain popular that does not keep up a
bright, cheery, out o'door fire. And the fun of it--to an old
woodsman--is in noting how like a lot of school children they all act
about the fire. Ed Bennett had a man, a North Woods trapper, in his
employ, whose chief business was to furnish plenty of wood for the
guides' camp and start a good fire every evening by sundown. As it grew
dark and the blaze shone high and bright, the guests would begin to
straggle in; and every man, woman and child seemed to view it as a
religious duty to pause by the fire and add a stick or two, before
passing into camp. The wood was thrown on endwise, crosswise, or any
way, so that it would burn, precisely as a crowd of boys make a bonfire
on the village green. The object being, apparently, to get rid of the
wood in the shortest possible time.

When the fire burnt low, toward midnight, the guests would saunter off
to the hotel; and the guides, who had been waiting impatiently, would
organize what was left of the fire, roll themselves in their blankets
and turn in. I suggested to the trapper that he and I make one fire as
it should be and maybe they would follow suit--which would save half
the fuel, with a better fire. But he said, "No; they like to build
bonfires and Ed can stand the wood, because it is best to let them have
their own way. Time seems to hang heavy on their hands--and they pay
well." Summer boarders, tourists and sportsmen, are not the only men
who know how to build a campfire all wrong.

When I first came to Northern Pennsylvania, thirty-five years ago, I
found game fairly abundant; and, as I wanted to learn the country where
deer most abounded, I naturally cottoned to the local hunters. Good
fellows enough, and conceited, as all local hunters and anglers are apt
to be. Strong, good hunters and axe-men, to the manner born and prone
to look on any outsider as a tenderfoot. Their mode of building
campfires was a constant vexation to me. They made it a point to always
have a heavy sharp axe in camp, and toward night some sturdy chopper
would cut eight