Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/128

 had just left the place and had a score to settle with him. He kept his rifle near at hand whenever leaving the shack.

An old Franklin stove, heavily rusted and broken in several places, did for a fireplace and Stanley added to his small store of wood-craft when he came to build the fire.

“Want to burn us out?” asked Bub, as his friend stooped and placed new fuel on the blaze.

“You said it was all right for me to build a fire here,” remonstrated Stanley.

“I forgot you are new,” apologized Bub. “But that cedar and hemlock will send sparks flying every which way. Git some beech, or maple, or pine. The pine will smoke, but it won’t spark.”

“It doesn’t seem that I can do anything right,” said Stanley.

“Not the first time,” readily agreed Bub.

“Is there anything hemlock is good for?” sarcastically inquired Stanley, throwing the offending wood aside.

“Sure,” gravely returned Bub, refusing to detect any irony. “The bark is used in tanneries. In the old days they chopped down hemlock and after peeling it they’d leave it to rot in the woods. Big trees, too. Nowadays