rhaps the hearty fun and laughter more than
compensate for these little mishaps.

This is a digression. But I am led to it by the recollection of many
nights spent in camps and around campfires, pretty much as described
above. I can smile today at the remembrance of the calm, superior way
in which the old hunters of that day would look down on me, as from the
upper branches of a tall hemlock, when I ventured to suggest that a
better fire could be made with half the fuel and less than half the
labor. They would kindly remark, "Oh, you are a Boston boy. You are
used to paying $8.00 a cord for wood. We have no call to save wood
here. We can afford to burn it by the acre." Which was more true than
logical. Most of these men had commenced life with a stern declaration
of war against the forest; and, although the men usually won at last,
the battle was a long and hard one. Small wonder that they came to look
upon a forest tree as a natural enemy. The campfire question came to a
crisis, however, with two or three of these old settlers. And, as the
story well illustrates my point, I will venture to tell it.

It was in the "dark days before Christmas" that a party of four
started from W., bound for a camp on Second Fork, in the deepest part
of the wilderness that lies between Wellsboro and the Block House. The
party consisted of Sile J., Old Al, Eli J. and the writer. The two
first were gray-haired men, the others past thirty; all the same, they
called us "the boys." The weather was not inviting and there was small
danger of our camp being invaded by summer outers or tenderfeet. It
cost twelve miles of hard travel to reach that camp; and, though we
started at daylight, it was past noon when we arrived. The first seven
miles could be made on wheels, the balance by hard tramping. The road
was execrable; no one cared to ride; but it was necessary to have our
loads carried as far as possible. The clearings looked dreary enough
and the woods forbidding to a degree, but our old camp was the picture
of desolation. There was six inches of damp snow on the leafless brush
roof, the blackened brands of our last fire were sticking their charred
ends out of the snow, the hemlocks were bending sadly under their loads
of wet snow and the entire surroundings had a cold, cheerless, slushy
look, very little like the ideal hunter's camp. We placed our knapsacks
in the shanty, Eli got out his nail hatchet, I drew my little pocket-axe
and we procee