I suggested that we take turns cooking, and
in place of the black muddy coffee, greasy fish and soggy biscuit, I
made some Johnny cake, boiled a little rice and raisins and baked a
fish for a change instead of frying it. His turn to cook never came
again. He suggested himself that he would be woodchopper and scullion
and let me do the cooking. I readily agreed and found that it was
only half as much work as being the handy man.

The basis of camp cooking is the fire. It is the surest way to tell
whether the cook knows his business or not. The beginner always starts
with a fire hot enough to roast an ox and just before he begins
cooking piles on more wood. Then when everything is sizzling and
red-hot, including the handles of all his cooking utensils, he is
ready to begin the preparation of the meal. A cloud of smoke follows
him around the fire with every shift of the wind. Occasionally he will
rush in through the smoke to turn the meat or stir the porridge and
rush out again puffing and gasping for breath, his eyes watery and
blinded and his fingers scorched almost like a fireman coming out of a
burning building where he has gone to rescue some child. The chances
are, if this kind of a cook takes hold of the handle of a hot frying
pan, pan and contents will be dumped in a heap into the fire to
further add to the smoke and blaze.

When the old hand begins to cook, he first takes out of the fire the
unburned pieces and blazing sticks, leaving a bed of glowing coals to
which he can easily add a little wood, if the fire gets low and a
watched pot refuses to boil to his satisfaction. When the fire is
simply a mass of red coals he quietly goes to cooking, and if his fire
has been well made and of the right kind of wood, the embers will
continue to glow and give out heat for an hour.

Of course, if the cooking consists in boiling water for some purpose,
there is no particular objection to a hot fire, the fire above
described is for broiling, frying and working around generally.

[Illustration: A type of camp fire that will burn all night]

There are all sorts of camp fireplaces. The quickest one to build and
one of the best as well, is the "hunter's fire," All you need is an
axe. Take two green logs about six to eight inches thick and five feet
long and lay them six inches apart at one end and about fourteen
inches at the other. Be sure that the logs are straight. It is a good
plan to flatten the surface slightly on one