the night. Select your camping spot with reference to water, wood, drainage, and material for your lean-to. Choose a dry, level place, the ground just sloping enough to insure the water running away from your lean-to in case of rain. In building your lean-to look for a couple of good trees standing from eight to ten feet apart with branches from six to eight feet above the ground. By studying
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the illustration (No. 2) you will be able to build a very serviceable shack, affording protection from the dews and rain. While two or more boys are building the shack, another should be gathering firewood and preparing the meal, while Fig. a. Method of thatching another should be cutting and bringing in as many soft, thick tips of trees as possible, for the roof of the shack and the beds.
How to thatch the lean-to is shown in illustration No. 2.
If the camp site is to be used for several days, two lean-tos may be built facing each other, about six feet apart. This will make a very comfortable camp, as a small fire can be built between the two thus giving warmth and light.
The Bed
On the floor of your lean-to lay a thick layer of the fans or branches of a balsam or hemlock, with the convex side up, and the butts of the stems toward the foot of the bed. Now thatch this over with more fans by thrusting the butt ends through the first layer at a slight angle toward the head of the bed, so that the soft tips will curve toward the foot of the bed, and be sure to make the head of your bed away from the opening of the lean-to and the foot toward the opening. Over this bed spread your rubber blankets or ponchos with rubber side down, your sleeping blanket on top, and you will be surprised how soft, springy, and fragrant a bed you have, upon which to rest your "weary frame" and sing with the poet:
"Then the pine boughs croon me a lullaby,
And trickle the white moonbeams
To my face on the balsam where I lie
