Читать книгу Camping in the Winter Woods: Adventures of Two Boys in the Maine Woods онлайн

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He would have skinned the buck, but twilight was fast gathering, and they must choose a suitable camp-site and build some sort of a shelter for the night. Therefore he decided to leave the deer hung up until daylight, when he could remove the hide and quarter the carcass.

They washed in the clear, cold water of a little stream. Then Ben began his search for a camping-place. At last he found a spot to his liking on top of a pine-clad knoll. He led the boys to it, and bade them slip their packs.

Ben looked around until he found two trees growing on a parallel line, about six feet apart. He cut a pole about an inch wider than the space between their trunks. After cutting some notches in the pole’s upper side, he placed it between the trees and drove it down until it became securely wedged about six feet from the ground. Next he cut and trimmed two logs, each about eight feet long and some five inches through. He placed them on the ground, one extending back from the base of each tree.

At his order the boys had cut some long straight poles, about two inches in diameter. They were placed against the notched ridge-pole between the trees, the end of each pole fitting nicely into the notch cut to hold it, and the lower end resting on the ground some eight or ten feet back.