age a fire. I had an idea--a good Scout
idea.

First I picked out a place for the night. In one spot the faces of two
rocks met at an angle. The grass here was dead and softish, and the wind
blowing off the snowy range on the west didn't get in. I gathered a
bunch of the grass, and tore my handkerchief with my teeth and mixed
some ravelings of that in and tied a nest, with a handle to it. Then I
got some of the dry twigs lying about, and had them ready. Then I found
a piece of flinty rock--I think it was quartzite; and I took off a shoe
and struck the rock on the hob nails, over the nest of grass.

It worked! The sparks flew and landed in the loose knot, and I blew to
start them. After I had been trying, I saw a little smoke, and smelled
it; and so I grabbed the nest by its handle and swung it. It caught
fire, and in a jiffy I had it on the ground, with twigs across it--and I
was fixed. A fire makes a big difference. I wasn't lonesome any more.
This camp was home. (Note 40.)

I was so hungry that I didn't more than half cook the grouse by holding
pieces on a stick over the blaze, trapper style. While I gnawed I went
out around the rocks and watched the sunset. It was glorious, and the
pink and gold lasted, with the snowy range and old Pilot Peak showing
sharp and cold against it. Up here I was right in the twilight, while
below the timber and the valleys were dark.

I must collect wood while I could see, beginning with the pieces
furthest away. Down at the bottom of the hill I had marked a big branch;
and out I hiked and hauled it up. That camp looked grand when I came in
again; the bottom of the hill was gloomy, but here I had a fire.

The sunset was done; everything was dark; the stars were shining all
through the sky; from the timber below queer cries and calls floated up
to me, but there was nothing to be afraid of. I was minding my business,
and animals would be minding theirs. So I moved the fire forward a
little from the angle of the rocks, and sat in the angle myself. Wow,
but it was warm and nice! I couldn't make a big fire, because I didn't
want to run out of fuel; but the little fire was better, as long as it
was large enough to be cheerful and to warm me. I spliced my broken
arrow with string.

This was real Scout coziness. Of course, I sort of wished that Fitz or
little Jed Smith or somebody else was there, for company; but I'd done
pretty well. I tried to study the stars--but as I sat I kept nodding