The Scientific American Boy by A. Russell Bond

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"What! A can of oil to build yer fire with? Well, ye won't git it from me.
I know a man as got blowed up apourin' oil on a fire. Why, shucks, boys,
you don't need no oil ner paper nuther on that there island. Its
chuck-full of silver birch trees, and there ain't no better kindlin' than
birch bark."

Birch bark! Why, yes, why hadn't we thought of that? We had used it for
torches the summer before and knew how nicely it burned. So back we skated
to camp, and then, peeling off a large quantity of bark from the birch
trees around us, we soon had a rousing big fire in front of the hut.

The Outdoor Fireplace.

[Illustration: Fig. 197. An Outdoor Cooking Fire.]

But there were more things to be learned about open fires. In our summer
outing Jack had done most of his cooking on a kerosene stove, and he soon
found that it was a very different matter to cook over an unsheltered
fire. The heat was constantly carried hither and thither by the gusts of
wind, so that he could scarcely warm up his saucepans. We had to content
ourselves with cold victuals for the first meal, but before the next meal
time came around we had learned a little more about fire building. Two
large logs were placed about 10 inches apart, and the space between them
was filled in with pieces of bark and small twigs and sticks. The back of
the fireplace was closed with stones. One touch of a match was enough to
kindle the fire, and in a moment it blazed up beautifully. The logs at the
sides and the stones at the back prevented the wind from scattering the
flames in all directions, and a steady draft poured through the open end
of the fireplace and up through the heart of the fire. The side logs were
so close together that our cooking utensils could be supported directly on
them.

A Stone-paved Fireplace.

The following summer we continued our open fireplace experiments. Instead
of using logs we drove stakes into the ground, forming a small circular
stockade about 2 feet high and 3 feet in diameter. A paving of small
stones covered the floor of the fireplace, and a lining of stones was laid
against the wall. The stakes were driven in on a slant, as illustrated in
Fig. 198, so as to better support the stone lining. A break in the
stockade at one side let in the necessary draft. Two of the stakes on
opposite sides of the fire were made extra long, and were crotched at
their upper ends. They served to support the cross stick from which our
kettles were hung. This form of fireplace was more satisfactory for baking
than the one in which logs were used for the side walls, because the stone
lining retained the heat much longer. To bake biscuit, a pot of beans, or
the like, the ashes would be drawn away from the stone paving and the pot
placed directly on the hot stones, after which it was covered with hot
embers and ashes.

[Illustration: Fig.198. A Stone-paved Fireplace.]

A Cold Night in the Hut.

But to return to our experiences on the island. We found it very cold on
the first night in the hut. We were afraid to build a fire inside lest the
straw thatchings would catch lire, and so we huddled together in the
corner, rolled up tightly in our blankets. But it was cold, nevertheless.
We had no door to close the opening into the hut, and instead had piled up
branches of cedar and hemlock against the doorway. But a bitterly cold
northwest wind was blowing down the river, and we couldn't keep warm, no
matter what we did. Most of the boys were ready to go right home, but we
stuck it out until the morning, and then after we had toasted ourselves
before a blazing bright fire, and had eaten a hot breakfast, we forgot
much of the discomfort of the night and were ready for more "fun." We
thought we would spend the next night in our tree house, and so, right
after breakfast, we packed up our blankets and some provisions and started
for the Jacob's Ladder.

Mountain Climbing.

Each fellow was provided with a pair of ice creepers of the same sort as
we had used in connection with the rennwolf (see page 170). In addition to
this each boy was provided with a home-made alpine stock, consisting of a
stout wooden stick in the end of which a large nail was driven and the
head filed off. Thus equipped we came to the foot of the cliff, and much
to our delight found it one mass of ice from top to bottom. Now was our
chance to try some Swiss mountain climbing. Bill took the lead, with an
old hatchet in his hand, to hack out any necessary footholds in the ice
wall, and the rest of us strung out behind him tied to a long rope, each
boy about 10 or 12 feet from the one ahead. Bill cautioned us to keep our
distance, holding the rope taut in one hand, so that if a fellow stumbled
he could be kept from falling either by the one in front or by the one
behind.

"Besides," he said, "if the rope drags on the ice, it is liable to be cut
or worn so that it will break when any strain was put on it."

Now, one would think from all these precautions that we were launched on a
perilous expedition. That was the impression we were trying to make on
ourselves, though, as a matter of fact, anyone of us could have climbed
the cliff unaided and without any ice implements if he had used ordinary
care not to slip on the ice-clad ladder rounds or the snow-covered
ledges.

[Illustration: Fig. 199. Winter Expedition to the Goblins' Platform.]

A Poor Shelter.

The climb was without mishap and we reached our tree house, only to find
it so badly racked by storm and weather that it was clearly out of the
question to attempt to spend the night there. The wind howled around the
house and whistled through dozens of cracks and chinks that had opened in
the walls. All that we could do, therefore, was to turn back to the island
and make the best of our straw hut again. On the way, however, we stopped
at Lumberville for some straw to be used for bedding. The afternoon was
spent sailing around on Lake Placid and the large smooth stretch above the
island.

A Costly Camp Fire.

[Illustration: Bill Gets Tangled up with His Skis.]

[Illustration: Warming the Lunch on a Cold Day.]

After supper Bill and Reddy went into the hut to arrange the straw
bedding, while the rest of us gathered wood for a huge bonfire in front of
the hut. The wind was blowing right down the river and we expected it to
carry the warmth of the fire into the hut. The fire was built some distance
in front of the doorway, so as to prevent the hut from catching fire. But
we had evidently miscalculated the strength of the wind, for no sooner
was the fire fairly started than a shower of flaming brands was blown
right into the hut. In a moment the straw blazed up, cutting off all escape
for Bill and Reddy. Fortunately the framing was not strong and the frost
had loosened up the foundations, so that a few frantic kicks opened an
exit in the rear of the hut just in time to save our comrades from
cremation. Once it was fairly started we were powerless to put out the
blaze until the hut was ruined. The snow that covered the walls checked
the fire somewhat, but the thatching burned from the inside, melting the
snow and dropping it suddenly into the flaming straw bedding on the
floor. As we sat in a gloomy ring about the camp fire, watching the
tongues of flame play about the charred ribs of our hut, we had reason
to be thankful that the wind had played its pranks before we turned in for
the night. What a risk we had run of being all burned to death! It made me
shudder to think of it. Well, our hut was burned. What next? That was the
question put before the society.

"Might build a snow hut," suggested Dutchy.

"Now, be sensible," answered Reddy. "We can't build a snow hut in five
minutes."

"The best plan," I volunteered, "would be to go over to Jim Halliday's and
ask him to let us sleep in his barn."

Immediately the suggestion was acted upon.

A Friend in Time of Trouble.

Old Jim Halliday greeted us very gruffly. He said he wouldn't have us in
his barn. "You'll be amussin' up the hay so't wouldn't be fit fer the
horses to eat. Any boy that is fool enough to build a fire on a straw bed
ought to go right home to his mother, and he hadn't oughter be trusted
with matches, nuther. He might get his fingers burned."

But I caught a twinkle in the old man's eyes and wasn't surprised to have
him end his lecture by taking us into the kitchen and seating us around an
old-fashioned log fire while "Marthy," his daughter, made us some hot
coffee to take the chill out of our bones. We didn't sleep in the barn
that night. The Hallidays had only one spare bed, hardly enough for six
boys, and the old man didn't want to be partial to any two of us, but his
daughter solved the difficulty by dragging down two large feather
mattresses and laying them on the kitchen floor in front of the hearth.

Before bidding us "good night," Mr. Halliday put on his sternest
expression and bade Marthy clear out all the matches from the room.

"Jest as like as not they'll set fire to the house," he growled. "I expect
this is my last night on airth." And then, with a solemn warning not to
hang our clothes on the flames, and to "keep them feather beds offen the
embers," he left us to a comfortable night's rest.

In the morning, after we had disposed of all the hot griddle cakes we
could eat, and had sincerely thanked our host and hostess for their
hospitality, we wended our way back to the island, silently packed up our
goods and started home for Lamington.

"Well, this isn't going to happen again," was Bill's comment. "Next year
we'll have a log cabin on the island."

[Illustration: Fast Asleep in a Sleeping Bag.]

[Illustration: How the Pack Harness was Worn.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

TRAMPING OUTFITS.

Our winter expedition to Willow Clump Island filled us with a wholesome
respect for Arctic explorers. If we could find it so uncomfortable with
the thermometer only at 10 degrees above zero, what would it be to endure
a temperature of 40, 50 or even 60 degrees below zero? We were interested
to learn how they managed to stand it. This led to a study of the subject
in Mr. Van Syckel's library.

Sleeping Bags.

In one of the books Dutchy came across the description of a sleeping bag.
It was made of reindeer's skin sewed into a large bag with the fur side
turned in. This bag was large enough to hold three or four sleepers, and
each man was covered with a pair of woolen bags, one bag slipped inside
the other. The woolen bags were made of blankets sewed together and
provided with flaps at the upper ends to cover the head of the sleeper.

Of course, we had to make a sleeping bag, too. The innermost bag was made
of an old quilt and the next one of a blanket that we were fortunate
enough to get hold of. But when it came to the reindeer skin we were
balked, until we happened to run across a piece of rubber sheeting at the
village store. This was a lucky find, for I doubt if one country store in
a hundred carries such stock. The piece was just large enough to cover the
blanket bag and allow for an ample flap to cover the head. To be sure,
this furnished a shelter for only one person, and there were six in the
society. It was clear that the treasury could not afford the expense of
six sleeping bags; but as such a device would be useful only under very
unusual circumstances we decided that two sleeping bags would be all the
society would need. We had been rather curious to explore the country back
of the hills on the Pennsylvania side of the river, and with some light
provisions and these sleeping bags strapped to the back a couple of boys
could make quite an extended tour, unmindful of weather conditions. On
real hot nights a fellow could get into the quilt bag and sleep on the
blanket and waterproof bag. In cold weather the combination of all three
bags provided sufficient warmth. The rubber bag would protect the sleeper
from any moisture in the ground, and would also keep him thoroughly dry,
even in a pouring rain.

Bill's "Mummy Case."

[Illustration: Fig. 200. Bottom Piece of Sleeping Bag.]

[Illustration: Fig. 201. Top Piece of Sleeping Bag.]

[Illustration: Fig. 202. Headboards.]

Our second sleeping bag was Bill's own design, and was, in many respects,
an improvement on the first, though it looked ridiculously like an
Egyptian mummy case. The inner bags were just like those of the first
sleeping bag, but as there was no more rubber sheeting in town we had to
make the outer bag of enameled cloth, such as is used for carriage
curtains. Out of this cloth Bill cut a piece of the shape shown in Fig.
200 to serve as bottom, sides and ends of the sleeping bag. The bag was
sewed wrong side out; that is, the piece was laid with enameled side up,
and then the corners were sewed together after painting the scams with
white lead. Then a top piece was cut out, of the size indicated in Fig.
201. The edges were hemmed over a piece of rope, which thus formed a
corded edge. Now, with the enameled side of the cover piece turned inward,
its edges were sewed to the edges of the first piece. The bag was now
turned inside out, so that the enameled surface lay on the outside and the
seams turned inward. The corded edge on the cover piece lapped over the
sides, forming a watershed.

[Illustration: Fig. 203. The Mummy Case.]

[Illustration: Fig. 204. Sleeping Bag in Use.]

It was Bill's idea to rig up the flap in such a manner that it would not
lie against the face, so that the sleeper could have plenty of fresh air,
even in rainy weather. This required the use of two headboards, of the
form shown in Fig. 202. The headboards were connected at the bottom by a
thin board, and to this framework the sides of the bag were nailed. To the
end flap several cleats were nailed, adapted to fit into notches cut in
the headboards. The cleat at the end of the flap was laid on edge, as
shown, and fitted into deep notches in the headboards just above the edge
of the cover piece. This held the flap securely, preventing it from flying
open in a heavy wind. At the same time the small space between the flap
and the cover piece allowed for an ample supply of fresh air. When using
this sleeping bag, if there was any indication of a shower, we took care
to have the head pointed to windward so as to prevent entrance of rain
through this air space.

The "A" Tent.

[Illustration: Fig. 205. The "A" Tent.]

In connection with the sleeping bags it may be well to describe here a
curious shelter Dutchy and I came across in one of our tramps. It was just
about dusk one day when we discovered a temporary camp at which a couple
of men were preparing dinner. They informed us that they were naturalists
on a two weeks' outing. At their invitation we joined camp with them. They
had a small "A" tent of balloon silk, under which they kept their
provisions. The tent had no ridge pole, but was supported instead by a
rope stretched between two trees (see Fig. 205).

A Camp Chair.

[Illustration: Fig. 206. The Camp Chair.]

[Illustration: Fig. 207. Pockets in the Canvas Back.]

The camp was also furnished with an easy canvas chair, made by driving a
couple of short posts in the ground for front legs and a pair of longer
ones for the back. A piece of canvas was hung over these posts, forming
both seat and back. The posts were driven into the ground on a slant, as
illustrated in Fig. 206, and the canvas was formed with pockets at the
corners which were hooked over these posts. This made a very comfortable
chair, though, of course, it was fixed to one spot. When the men moved
camp they would carry with them only the canvas piece, and at the next
stopping place new posts were chopped and used for legs.

[Illustration: Waiting for a Bite.]

[Illustration: Temporary Shelter Under an "A" Tent.]

The Camp Bed.

[Illustration: Fig. 208. Canvas Bed.]

[Illustration: Fig. 209. Bed Set up on Posts.]

But what interested us most was the form of bed they had. This, like the
chair, consisted of a piece of canvas arranged to be supported on posts
cut from the woods in the neighborhood of the camp. The canvas piece was 3
feet wide and 6 feet long, with a wide hem at each side, forming pockets
through which poles were passed, as in a stretcher. The ends of the poles
were supported on posts driven into the ground. The poles were also
propped up at the center, as shown, the pockets being cut away and bound,
so as not to permit any wear on the canvas. To prevent the posts from
leaning inward under the weight of the sleeper, they were braced apart by
cross sticks.

The Camp Bed in a Shower.

[Illustration: Fig. 210. A Poncho.]

[Illustration: Fig. 211. Camp Bed in the Rain.]

As a precaution against rain, a tall post was set up at the head and
another at the foot of the bed, and a rope was stretched over the posts
with the ends fastened to stakes driven into the ground. Over this rope a
rubber "poncho" was laid to keep off the rain. A "poncho," by the way, is
a blanket of rubber cloth about 4-1/2 feet wide and 6 feet long, in the
center of which is a slit through which you can put your head; then the
rubber cloth falls over you like a cape, as in Fig. 210, and makes a
perfect protection against rain. The ponchos these men had were not quite
long enough to cover the whole bed, so they fastened umbrellas to the head
posts, as shown in Fig. 211. During a shower in the woods the rain comes
straight down in large drops, caused by the water collecting on the
leaves. To prevent these large drops from splashing through the umbrellas,
they laid pieces of cloth over the umbrellas, which served, like the fly
of a tent, to check the fall of rain drops.

[Illustration: Fig. 212. Umbrella with Fly.]

A Nightmare.

I slept in the mummy case that night and Dutchy in the first sleeping bag.
It must have been about midnight when I was awakened by a most unearthly
yell. It sent the cold chills running up and down my back. A second scream
brought me into action, and I struggled to throw back the head flap, which
had become caught. It seemed an age before I could open it and wriggle out
of the bag. Dutchy was sitting up in bed with a look of horror on his
face, and his whole body was in a tremor of fear. One of the men dashed a
glass of water in his face, which brought him back to his senses. It was
only a nightmare, we found. Dutchy dreamed he had been injured in a
railway accident and had been taken for dead to the morgue. He tried to
let them know that he was alive, but couldn't utter a sound, until finally
he burst out with the yells that roused the camp. Then, as he awoke with
the horror of the dream still on him, his eyes fell on the two stretcher
beds that looked like biers and the black coffin-like sleeping bag. It was
not much wonder that Dutchy was frightened. The camp did certainly have a
most ghastly appearance in the vague moonlight that filtered through the
trees, and it must have been still more gruesome to see the coffin and
biers suddenly burst open and the corpses come running toward him. To
prevent any further nightmare we set Dutchy's sleeping bag under the "A"
tent, where he would be saved the horror of again waking up in a morgue.

Pack Harness.

In the morning our friends broke camp and started westward. Dutchy and I
watched them packing up their goods into a couple of very compact bundles,
which they strapped to their backs with a peculiar pack harness. I took
careful note of the way the harness was put together, and when we returned
to the island we made two sets for use on our tramping expeditions. A
canvas yoke was first cut out to the form shown in Fig. 213. We used two
thicknesses of the heaviest brown canvas we could find, binding the two
pieces together with tape. The yoke was padded with cotton at the
shoulders and a strap was fastened to each shoulder piece. These were
arranged to be buckled to a pair of straps fastened to the back of the
yoke and passing under the arms. Riveted to these straps were a pair of
straps used for fastening on the pack. The yoke straps were attached with
the rough side against the yoke, while the pack straps were riveted on
with the rough side uppermost, as indicated in the drawing.

[Illustration: Fig. 213. Pack Harness.]

Riveting.

[Illustration: Fig. 214. Riveting the Straps Together.]

The method of riveting together the leather straps may need a word of
explanation. A copper rivet was passed through a hole in the two straps;
then the washer was slipped over the projecting end of the rivet. This
washer had to be jammed down tight against the leather, and to do this we
drilled a hole of the diameter of the rivet in a block of wood, and
putting this block over the washer, with the end of the rivet projecting
into the hole, we hammered the block until the washer was forced down
tight against the leather. Then taking a light tack hammer we battered
down the end of the rivet onto the washer. Care was taken to do this
hammering very lightly, otherwise the end would have been bent over
instead of being flattened.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LAND YACHT.

Only one thing of importance occurred between our Christmas holidays and
Eastertide: this was Bill's invention of the tricycle sailboat or land
yacht. We had returned to school with sailing on the brain. Our skate sail
served us well enough while there was any ice, but as spring came on we
wished we had our canoe with us, or even the old scow to sail on the lakes
near the school. Once we seriously considered building a sailboat, but the
project was given up, as we had few facilities for such work. But Bill
wasn't easily baffled, and I wasn't surprised to have him come tearing
into the room one day, yelling, "I've got it! I've got it!" In his hands
were two bicycle wheels, which I recognized as belonging to a couple of
bicycles we had discarded the year before.

"What are you going to do with them?" I inquired.

"I'm going to make a tricycle sailboat."

"What?"

"A tricycle sailboat, a land boat, or anything you've a mind to call it. I
mean a boat just like our ice boat only on bicycle wheels instead of
skates. We can sail all over south Jersey on the thing. Come on down and
help me build it."

The Frame of the Yacht.

[Illustration: Fig. 215. The Backbone and Crosspiece.]

I followed him to the shed at the back of the school and found that he had
already procured a couple of scantlings for the frame of the boat. The
sticks were 2 inches thick and 4 inches wide. The backbone was cut to a
length of 10 feet, and a 5-foot link was sawed off for the crosspiece. The
two pieces were securely nailed together about 3 feet from the forward end
of the backbone. The crosspiece was set on edge, but a notch was cut in it
about 1 inch deep to receive the backbone. We might have braced the frame
with wooden braces, as in the ice boat, but we thought that this time we
would vary the design by using wire bracing instead, thus making the frame
much lighter. I asked Bill how he proposed to tighten the wire.
Turnbuckles were the thing, but I knew that they were rather expensive.

"Just you leave that to me," said Bill. "I've a scheme that I think will
work out all right."

A Simple Turnbuckle.

[Illustration: Fig. 216. An Eye Bolt.]

[Illustration: Fig. 217. Stretching the Guy Lines.]

At the hardware store of the town we bought a pound of No. 16 iron wire,
eight large screw eyes and six eye bolts, with nuts and washers. Both the
screw eyes and eye bolts had welded eyes and the shanks of the eye bolts
were 6 inches long. A pair of screw eyes were now threaded into the
backbone at each side about 18 inches from the end, and at each end of the
crosspieces an eye bolt was fastened. I began to see Bill's plan. He was
going to draw the wire taut by tightening up the nuts on the eye bolts. To
get the best effect the hole for the eye bolt had to be drilled in on a
slant, so that the bolt would pull directly in the line of the wire. To
get just the right angle we ran a cord from the screw eye on one side to
the point where the bolt was to be inserted, and traced its direction on
the crosspiece. The hole for the eye bolt was now drilled parallel with
the mark we had traced. The same was done at the other end of the
crosspiece. A pair of screw eyes were now screwed into the backbone at the
fore end and a pair of eye bolts were set at a corresponding angle in the
ends of the crosspiece. The crosspiece was notched at each side so that
the nuts and washers on the eye bolts would have a square seating. Then we
stretched on the wire guy lines, drawing them as tight as possible, with
the eye bolts held in place by a turn or two of the nuts, after which we
screwed up the nuts as far as we could, thus drawing up the wire until it
was very taut. This done the second nut was threaded onto each bolt
against the first so as to lock it in place and prevent it from jarring
loose.

Stepping the Mast.

Our next task was to step the mast. We found in the shed an old flagstaff
15 feet long and 3 inches in diameter. The lower end of this, for about a
foot, we whittled down to a diameter of 2 inches, and drove it into a hole
in the backbone 12 inches from the forward end. The mast was stayed by a
wire stretched from the head to an eye bolt at the fore end of the
backbone. The end of the mast which projected below the backbone was
stayed with wire running forward to an eye bolt and aft to a screw eye on
the backbone, and also with a pair of wires running to screw eyes threaded
into the crosspiece near the ends. We couldn't very well use eye bolts on
these wires except at the fore end, but we stretched the wires as tight as
possible before the screw eyes were screwed all the way in, and then, as
we turned the screw eyes, the wire was wound up on them and drawn fairly
taut. Fig. 219 shows a side view of the frame, and wires marked 1 and 2
are the same as illustrated in Fig. 218, which is a top or plan view of
the frame.

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