Captain Sam: The Boy Scouts of 1814

pper, limiting the amount of food cooked for each member of the party, a regulation which he enforced strictly throughout the march, lest any of the boys should imprudently eat

plies they had would last ten days, and Sam hoped to add to them by killing game from time to time, for although

es, about an inch in diameter, and taking care that they tapered as little and as regularly as possible. Cutting them off at both

ought his canes to the fire and laid them do

o do with them canes, S

you think

I know," re

d Sam. "It isn't a very good thing to say, and

what's the od

u'll quit it, I'll give you one of

u goin' to m

ng away as hard as he c

r'd burst 'em in a minute, and

ut of these canes, and I'm going

sort o

w gu

" asked Joe, becoming interes

ment and so Tom, who had seen Sam's

r around the light ends. The fur fills up the hole in the cane, and when he blows in the en

the elder brother

going to burn

a bit of iron about six inches long towards

to reach all the joints you know, an

not by a

ed all the boys in a breath. "It's just l

t suppose it is. I can burn out a pipe st

two or three

from one end and t

rag them up through his long legs, "but that don't tell how you're goin' to bore out a

mmed again. He continued this process until he had the end of the cane a trifle larger than the iron was. Then taking an iron tube or band out of his pocket, he drove the iron rod firmly into

through either one of my big canes. It isn't iron except at the end, and it doesn't

must burn the canes out

hose that are commonly used as fishing rods. These canes grow all over the South, in the swamps. They are, in fact, a kind of gigantic grass, although the people who are most familiar with them do not dream of the fact. The botanists call them a grass, at any rate, and the botanists know. Each cane is a long, straight rod, tapering very gently, with "joints," as they are called, about eight or ten inche

on had to be re-heated a great many times. He worked very steadily, however with the assistance of tw

y small and only about ten inch

busy burning out the canes, to go to work making

nch in diameter. Returning to the fire, he split one end of this stick for a little way, converting it into a sort of rude p

rse shoe nails?" asked Hilly Bowlegs, looking u

of them," answered Sam, thrusting s

, holding the hot iron in his wooden pincers. Among the things that Sam had thought it worth while to learn something about, was blacksmithi

w how to do tolerably well whatever he might sometime need to do, and in a new country where shops are scarce and workmen

arrows, and then he suspended work for the evening, and marked progress on his map; that is to say, he pricked on hi