n when it is pitched in the regular way, and there is the
additional advantage of having a large front exposed to the fire which
you will probably build; at the same time also the under side of the
roof catches and reflects the heat downward. When you put up your tent
in this way, however, you must look out not to scorch it, and to take
especial care to prevent sparks from burning small holes in it. In fact,
whenever you have a roaring fire you must guard against mischief from
it.

[Illustration]

Do not leave your clothes or blanket hanging near a brisk fire to dry,
without confining them so that sudden gusts of wind shall not take them
into the flame.

[Illustration]

You may some time have occasion to make a shelter on a ledge or floor
where you cannot drive a pin or nail. If you can get rails, poles,
joists, or boards, you can make a frame in some one of the ways figured
here, and throw your tents over it.

These frames will be found useful for other purposes, and it is well to
remember how to make them.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Barrel-staves will not do for a double bed.

[10] It will roll up easier if the quilting runs from side to side only.

[11] This applies, as will be seen, only to tents having two uprights,
as the wall, "A," and shelter.

CHAPTER IX.

TENTS.--ARMY SHELTER-TENT (_tente d'abri_).

The shelter-tent used by the Union soldiers during the Rebellion was
made of light duck[12] about 31-1/2 inches wide. A tent was made in two
pieces both precisely alike, and each of them five feet long and five
feet and two inches wide; i.e., two widths of duck. One of these pieces
or half-tents was given to every soldier. That edge of the piece which
was the bottom of the tent was faced at the corners with a piece of
stouter duck three or four inches square. The seam in the middle of the
piece was also faced at the bottom, and eyelets were worked at these
three places, through which stout cords or ropes could be run to tie
this side of the tent down to the tent-pin, or to fasten it to whatever
else was handy. Along the other three edges of each piece of tent, at
intervals of about eight inches, were button-holes and buttons; the
holes an inch, and the buttons four inches, from the selvage or hem.[13]

Two men could button their pieces at the tops, and thus make a tent
entirely open at both ends, five feet and two inches long, by six to
seven feet wide according to the angle of the roof. A third man