In drying wet shoes never place near a fire for this will result in a hardening of the leather. It is better to heat oats or gravel and fill the shoes to absorb the dampness. Moccasins can be stuffed with dry browse of any kind or inverted over stakes driven in the ground not too near the camp fire. The pack should contain a ditty bag with a simple footwear repair outfit. For leather working take along a light weight awl, sail-maker’s needles and waxed thread with perhaps a repair patch of leather or rawhide. Customarily after long use of shoes or moccasins the threads break or wear away leaving seam leaks and one must be prepared to remedy them. They will be found especially around the vamp at the toe and the “T” heel joint. Clean out the old stitch holes back to where the twine is sound and start your repair seam a couple of stitches back of this. CHAPTER VII EFFICIENT CRUISING SHELTERS At night the novice wants to be housed in and the mysteries of darkness shut out, and as is becoming with precedent in outdoor living he must spread his blanket beneath cloth. This shelter can be very simple indeed and yet protect one from the elements. A tent’s sufficiency to turn water is not all that is necessary. Upon means of transportation and permanency of the camp depend the portability and lightness of the forest home. What will do in a permanent camp with plenty of transportation is a far cry from the tent just sufficing the absolute needs of the one-nighter who expects little more than mere shelter and warmth. The shelter must be waterproof and on a hike trip be the extreme in lightness and compactness for the sake of easy carrying. Light weight tents of clever design can now be secured from any outfitter; or tent making at home is feasible and offers so much opportunity for the expression of individual ideas that sooner or later the outdoor man will try a hand at fashioning the ideal shelter. Exclusively for the use of the hiker the simplest of tent forms will answer. THE SHELTER CLOTH A rectangular piece of sheeting of fine texture, size 7 by 9 feet and waterproofed by the paraffine process will serve very well as a roof, pitched leanto style or stretched over rope ridge or poles as a wedge or “A” tent. Its ends may be closed by thatching with browse and a cozy fire built in front. It makes the simplest cloth shelter known and the cloth has a variety of uses such as a poncho, pack cloth, floor cloth or sleeping bag cover. Going a step farther in construction one can make the ends also of cloth and then one has a regular leanto whose principles of construction are as old as the hills whence it originated. There is no more efficient cloth shelter for all kinds of weather no matter how elaborately it may be constructed.