To the bow must be added the twirling-stick and fireboard (Fig. 76).
Make these of spruce. The twirling-stick, spindle, or fire-drill should
be a little over half an inch in diameter and sixteen inches long. Its
sides may be rounded or bevelled in six or seven flat spaces like a
lead-pencil, as shown in Fig. 76. Cut the top end to a blunt point and
sharpen the bottom end as you would a lead-pencil, leaving the lead
blunt. To hold the spindle you must have something to protect your hand.
A piece of soapstone or a piece of very hard wood will answer. This is
called the socket-block. In the wood or stone make a hole for a socket
that will hold the top end of the spindle (Fig. 76).

The flat piece of spruce for your fireboard should be about two feet
long and a little less than one inch thick. Cut a number of triangular
notches in one edge of the board as in Fig. 76. Make the outer end of
each notch about half an inch wide, and at the inner end make a small,
cup-like hole large enough to hold the lower end of the twirling-stick.
This is called the fire pit. The reason you are to have so many notches
is because when one hole becomes too much enlarged by the drilling of
the twirling-stick, or is bored all the way through, it is discarded and
there must be others ready and prepared for immediate use.


=Tinder=

All is now ready for creating a spark, but that spark cannot live alone,
it must have something it can ignite before there will be a flame. What
is wanted is tinder, and tinder can be made of various materials, all of
which must be _absolutely dry_. Here is one receipt for making tinder
given by Daniel C. Beard: "The tinder is composed of baked and blackened
cotton and linen rags. The best way to prepare these rags is to bake
them until they are dry as dust, then place them on the hearth and touch
a match to them. As soon as they burst into flame, smother the flame
with a folded newspaper, then carefully put your punk (baked and charred
rags) into a tin tobacco box or some other receptacle where it will keep
dry and be ready for use."

This can be prepared at home. In the woods gather some of the dry inner
bark of the cedar, the fine, stringy edges of white or yellow birch, and
dry grasses, and dry them thoroughly at the camp-fire.

Mr. Beard also says: "You can prepare tinder from dry, inflammable woods
or barks by grinding or pounding them between two flat stones. If you
grind up some charcoal (taken from your camp-fire) very fine to mix with
it, this will make it all the more inflammable. A good, safe method to
get a flame from your fine tinder is to wrap up a small amount of it in
the shredded bark of birch or cedar, so that you may hold it in your
hand until it ignites from the embers produced by the saw."

With all your material at hand for starting a fire, make one turn around
the spindle, with the bow-string, as in Fig. 76. Place the point of the
lower end of the spindle in the small hole or "fire pit" at the inside
end of a notch in the fireboard, fit the socket-block on the top end of
the spindle (Fig. 76), and hold it in place with one hand, as shown in
Fig. 77. Grasp one end of the bow with the other hand and saw it back
and forth. This will whirl the spindle rapidly and cause the friction
which makes the heat that produces the spark. When it begins to smoke,
fan it with your hand and light your tinder from the sparks.


=Without the Bow=

Fig. 78 shows a method which is the same as Fig. 77, the only difference
being that the bow is dispensed with, the hands alone being used for
twirling the spindle. While simpler, it is very difficult to put
sufficient force and speed into the work to produce fire, and it is a
very tiresome process. Another way is shown in Fig. 79. It will take two
girls to work in this fashion. The spindle is whirled by pulling the
leather shoe-string back and forth. One girl holds the spindle and
steadies the fireboard while the other does the twirling.

[Illustration: THE RUBBING STICK

80

THE PLOW

78 79

81

SLIT BAMBOO

SAW

Fire without the bow.]


=The Plough=

It is more difficult to produce fire by the plough method than with the
bow, but it can be done. The appliances are simple enough. All you need
is a fireboard in which a groove or gutter has been cut, and a
rubbing-stick to push up and down the gutter (Fig. 80).

Other woods than spruce are used with success for fire-drills and
fireboards, but all must be dry. These are soft maple, cedar, balsam,
tamarack, cottonwood root, and _white_, not pitch, pine.