[Illustration: 286, 287, 288, 289 (A, B), 290, 291, 292
See that the ground is comparatively level, but with a slant in one direction or another so that water will drain off in case of rain. Never, for instance, pitch your tent in a hollow or basin of ground, unless you want to wake up some night slopping around in a pool of water. Do not pitch your tent near a standing dead tree; it is liable to fall over and crush you in the night. Avoid camping under green trees with heavy dead branches on them. Remember the real camper always has an eye to safety first, not because he is a coward, but because the real camper is as brave a person as you will find anywhere, and no real brave person believes in the carelessness which produces accidents. Do not pitch your tent over protruding stones which will make stumbling-blocks for you on which to stub your toes at night, or torture you when you spread your blankets over them to sleep. Use common sense, use gumption. Of course, we all know that _it hurts one's head to think_, but we must all try it, nevertheless, if we are going to live in the big outdoors.
At a famous military academy the splendid cavalrymen gave a brilliant exhibition of putting up wall tents; it required four men to put up each tent. Immediately following this some of the scouts took the same tents, with one scout to each tent, and in less time than the cavalrymen took for the same job, the twelve year old boys, single-handed, put up the same tents.
Spread out your tent all ready to erect, put your ridge pole and your two uprights in place, and then drive some tent stakes, using the flat of your axe with which to drive them, so that you will not split the tops of the stakes (Fig. 287); drive the two end stakes A and B (Fig. 289) at an angle to the ends of the tent. After the tent stakes are arranged in a row, like the ones in Fig. 289, adjust the forks of the uprights two inches from the ends of the ridge pole (Fig. 288), then make fast the two extreme end guy ropes A and B to the tent pegs; the others are unimportant for the present, after that is done, raise one tent pole part of the way up (Fig. 290), then push the other part of the way up (Fig. 291); gradually adjust these things until the strain is even upon your guy ropes. You will now find that your tent will stand alone, because the weight is pulling against your guy ropes (Fig. 292). This will hold your tent steady until you can make fast the guy ropes to the pegs upon the other side, not too tightly, because you need slack to straighten up your tent poles.