of shape too easily. Then by good fortune I chanced
to buy a pail or kettle of an aluminum alloy. That one pail I have used
constantly for five years on all sorts of trips. It shows not a single
dent or bend, and inside is as bright as a dollar. The ideal material
was found.

Short experience taught me, however, that even this aluminum alloy was
not best for every item of the culinary outfit.

[Sidenote: Utensils]

The coffee pot, kettles, and plates may be of the alloy, for it has the
property of holding heat, but by that very same token an aluminum cup is
an abomination. The coffee or tea cools before you can get your lips
next the metal. For the same reason spoons and forks are better of
steel; and of course it stands to reason that the cutting edge of a
knife must be of that material. The aluminum frying pans I have found
unsatisfactory for several reasons. The metal is not porous enough to
take grease, as does the steel pan, so that unless watched very closely
flapjacks, mush, and the like are too apt to stick and burn. In the
second place they get too hot, unless favored with more than their share
of attention. In the third place, in the case of the two I have owned, I
have been unable to keep the patent handle on for more than three weeks
after purchase.

Premising, then, the above considerations, as regards material, let us
examine now the kind and variety necessary to the most elaborate trip
you will take, at the same time keeping in mind the fact that you can
travel with merely a tin cup if you have to.

[Sidenote: Made-up Outfits]

Do not be led astray into buying a made-up outfit. The two-man set
consists of a coffee pot, two kettles, a fry pan, two each of plates,
cups, soup bowls, knives, forks, teaspoons, and dessert
spoons--everything of aluminum. All fit into the largest kettle, plates
and fry pan on top, and weigh but five pounds. The idea is good, but you
will be able to modify it to advantage.[4]

[Sidenote: A Good Two-Man Outfit]

Get for a two-man outfit two tin cups with the handles riveted, not
soldered. They will drop into the aluminum coffee pot. Omit the soup
bowls. Buy good steel knives and forks with blackwood or horn handles.
Let the forks be four-tined, if possible. Omit the teaspoons. Do not
make the mistake of tin dessert spoons. Purchase a half dozen of white
metal. All these things will go inside the aluminum coffee pot, which
will nest in the two aluminum kettles. Over th