Concerning fire making, volumes have been written. It is quite possible to learn from these incendiary publications exactly how to prepare the proper, perfect kind of a fire under any and all circumstances. Study alone is required to master the art--on paper! But in reality, making a quick and satisfactory camp-fire, like creating frying-pan bread, is a subtle attainment that can be mastered only by practice. No two people agree; it is easier to start a dispute over the details of a camp-fire than about anything imaginable, not even excepting the "best trout fly made"--and that, every fisherman knows, is a matter of piscatorial preference that has disrupted humanity since the days of Izaak Walton. Camp cooking is another art. There, again, place not all thy faith in books, for they are deceivers when it comes to a bit of bacon, a frying pan, some corn-meal and flour, and a pinch of baking powder. The only satisfactory rule is to have as few ingredients as possible and to have plenty of them. Flour, corn-meal, bacon, dried apples, butter, hardtack, sugar, salt, coffee, baking powder, beans--those form the essential foundation. There is an endless list of edibles that may be added, which run the gastronomic gamut from molasses to canned corn. But the way to learn real camp cooking, and by all odds the best procedure for happiness in transportation, is to take a small variety and keep each article in a cloth bag, which insures few troublesome packages and no disastrous leaks. "Cleanin' up" is no trick at all, when there is a river full of water a dozen feet from the fire, and it is simply a matter of two pots and two tin plates. There, indeed, the joys of camp life come home to the feminine member of the expedition most forcibly of all. "Isn't it heavenly! Only two plates to wash!" expressed the essence of her satisfaction. Two plates to wash, two paddles to manipulate, two healthful, happy weeks of out-of-doors, all as enjoyable for a woman as for a man--that was our Deschutes River canoe trip. And there are a score or more of other Oregon outings as delightful. CHAPTER X Olympus In the hilly residential section of Tacoma is a studio-workshop. On a certain September morning its inward appearance indicated the recent passage of a tornado--a human tornado of homecoming after a long campaign of camping. From dunnage bags, scattered about the floor, showered sleeping-bags, ruck sacks, a nest of cook pots, "packs," the rubber shoes of the north country, belts, knives, ammunition, and a thousand and one odds and ends. In a corner was an oiled silk tent, the worse for wear. Elsewhere, a clutter of ice axes, snowshoes, glacier spikes, guns, photographs, and hides occupied the available space. The room and its contents smacked of the regions that lie about the Arctic circle, and thence, indeed, they had just come. For Mine Host was barely back from Mt. McKinley and many months of venturesome exploration in Alaska.