you choose, lash three sticks together at the top ends,
spread them in the form of a tripod, then lay other sticks against them,
their butts forming a circle in the form of a teepee (Fig. 20).

Commence at the bottom as you do in shingling a roof and place sections of
birch bark around, others above them overlapping them, and hold them in
place by resting poles against them. If your camp is to be occupied for a
week or so, it may be convenient to build a wick-up shelter as a
dining-room like the one shown in Fig. 21. This is made with six uprights,
two to hold the ridge-pole and two to hold the eaves, and may be shingled
over with browse or birch, elm, spruce, or other bark; shingle with the
browse in the same manner as that described for the bark, beginning at the
eaves and allowing each row of browse to overlap the butts of the one
below it.

V

HOW TO MAKE BEAVER-MAT HUTS OR FAGOT SHACKS WITHOUT INJURY TO THE TREES

Material

IN building a shelter use every and any thing handy for the purpose;
ofttimes an uprooted tree will furnish a well-made adobe wall, where the
spreading roots have torn off the surface soil as the tree fell and what
was the under-side is now an exposed wall of clay, against which you may
rest the poles for the roof of a lean-to. Or the side of the cliff (Fig.
23) may offer you the same opportunity. Maybe two or three trees will be
found willing to act as uprights (Fig. 24). Where you use a wall of any
kind, rock, roots, or bank, it will, of course, be necessary to have your
doorway at one side of the shack as in Fig. 23. The upright poles may be
on stony ground where their butts cannot well be planted in the earth, and
there it will be necessary to brace them with slanting poles (Fig. 25).
Each camp will offer problems of its own, problems which add much to the
interest and pleasure of camp making.

Beaver Mat

The beaver-mat camp is a new one and, under favorable conditions, a good
one. Cut your poles the length required for the framework of the sides,
lash them together with the green rootlets of the tamarack or strips of
bark of the papaw, elm, cedar, or the inside bark of the chestnut (_A_,
Fig. 22); then make a bed of browse of any kind handy, but make it in the
manner described for making balsam beds (Fig. 7). You will, of course,
thatch so that when the side is erected it is shingled like a house, the
upper rows overlapping the lower ones. Then lash a duplicate frame over