How to Get Ready for Camp
There are some little personal things to which one should give one's attention before starting on a long trip. If it is going to be a real wild camping trip it is best to go to the barber shop and get a good hair cut just before one starts. Also one should trim one's nails down as close as comfort will allow. Long nails, if they are well manicured, will do for the drawing room and for the office, but in camp they have a habit of turning back (Fig. 232)—and gee willikens, how they hurt! Or they will split down into the quick (Fig. 233) and that hurts some, too! So trim them down snug and close; do it before you start packing up your things, or you may hurt your fingers while packing. But even before trimming your nails
Go to Your Dentist
And insist upon him making an examination of every tooth in your head; a toothache is bad enough anywhere, goodness knows, but a toothache away out in the woods with no help in sight will provoke a saint to use expressions not allowed by the Scout Manual. The Chief knows what he is talking about—he has been there! He once rode over Horse Plains alongside of a friend who had a bad tooth, and the friend was a real saint! His jaw was swelled out like a rubber balloon, but he did not use one naughty word on the trip, notwithstanding every jolt of that horse was like sticking a knife in him.
The writer could not help it; he was thoughtlessly cruel and he laughed at his friend's lugubrious expression—Take heed, do not be as cruel as was the writer, for sooner or later you will pay for such thoughtless levity. It was only next season, away up in the mountains of the British possessions on the Pacific Coast, that the friend's turn came to laugh at the author as the latter nursed an ulcerated tooth. Wow! Wow! Wow!
Well, never mind the details, they are too painful to talk about, but remember the lesson that they teach—Go to the Dentist and get a clean bill of health on the tooth question before you start for a lengthy camp.
A Buckskin Man's Pocket
Figs 232-244 Personal ItemsA Buckskin's Pocket
A Buckskin's Pocket
When we speak of his pocket that includes all of his clothes, because on the inside of his coat, if he wears one, are stuck an array of safety pins (Fig. 234), but usually the pins are fastened onto his shirt. A safety pin is as useful to a man in camp as is a hairpin to a woman, and a woman can camp with no other outfit but a box of hairpins. One canuse safety pins for clothespins when one's socks are drying at night, one can use them to pin up the blankets and thus make a sleeping-bag of them, or one can use them for the purpose of temporarily mending rips and tears in one's clothes. These are only a few of the uses of the safety pin on the trail. After one has traveled with safety pins one comes to believe that they are almost indispensable.
In one of the pockets there should be a lot of bachelor buttons, the sort that you do not have to sew on to your clothes, but which fasten with a snap, something like glove buttons. There should be a pocket made in your shirt or vest to fit your notebook (Fig. 244), and a part of it stitched up to hold a pencil and a toothbrush. Your mother can do this at home for you before you leave. Then you should have a good jack-knife; I always carry my jack-knife in my hip pocket. A pocket compass, one that you have tested before starting on your trip, should lodge comfortably in one of your pockets, and hitched in your belt should be your noggin carved from a burl from a tree (Fig. 235); it should be carried by slipping the toggle (Fig. 236) underneath the belt. Also in the belt you should carry some whang strings (Fig. 237); double the whang strings up so that the two ends come together, tuck the loop through your belt until it comes out at the other side, then put the two ends of the string through the loop and the whang strings are fast but easily pulled out when needed; whang strings are the same as belt lashings. A small whetstone (Fig. 238) can find a place somewhere about your clothes, probably in the other hip pocket, and it is most useful, not only with which to put an edge on your knife but also on your axe.
Inside the sweat band of your hat, or around the crown on the outside of your hat, carry a gut leader with medium-sizedartificial flies attached, and around your neck knot a big gaudy bandanna handkerchief (Fig. 239); it is a most useful article; it can be used in which to carry your game, food or duffel, or for warmth, or worn over the head for protection from insects (Fig. 240). In the latter case put it on your head under your hat and allow it to hang over your shoulders like the havelock worn by the soldiers of '61.
Carry your belt axe thrust through your belt at your back (Fig. 241), where it will be out of the way, not at your side as you do on parade.
No camper, be he hunter, fisherman, scout, naturalist, explorer, prospector, soldier or lumberman, should go into the woods without a notebook and hard lead pencil (Fig. 242). Remember that notes made with a hard pencil will last longer than those made with ink, and be readable as long as the paper lasts.
Every scientist and every surveyor knows this and it is only tenderfeet, who use a soft pencil and fountain pen for making field notes, because an upset canoe will blur all ink marks and the constant rubbing of the pages of the book will smudge all soft pencil marks.
Therefore, have a pocket especially made (Fig. 244), so that your notebook, pencil and fountain pen (Fig. 243), if you insist upon including it—will fit snugly with no chance of dropping out; also make a separate pocket for your toothbrush which should be kept in an oil-skin bag (Fig. 243).
A piece of candle (Fig. 245) is not only a most convenient thing with which to light a fire on a rainy day, but it has ofttimes proved a life saver to Northern explorers benumbed with the cold.
It is a comparatively easy thing to light a candle under the shelter of one's hat or coat, even in a driving rain. Whenone's fingers are numb or even frosted, and with the candle flame one can start a life-saving fire; so do not forget your candle stub as a part of your pocket outfit.
In the black fly belt it is wise to add a bottle of fly dope (Fig. 251) to one's personal equipment. If you make your own fly dope have a slow fire and allow to simmer over it
or heat 3 oz. of pine tar with two oz. of olive oil and then stir in 1 oz. of pennyroyal, 1 oz. of citronella, 1 oz. of creosote and 1 oz. of camphor.
If you propose traveling where there are black flies and mosquitoes, let your mother sew onto a pair of old kid gloves some chintz or calico sleeves that will reach from your wrists to above your elbow (Fig. 246), cut the tips of the fingers off the gloves so that you may be able to use your hands handily, and have an elastic in the top of the sleeve to hold them onto your arm. Rigged thus, the black flies and mosquitoes can only bite the ends of your fingers, and, sad to say, they will soon find where the ends of the fingers are located.
A piece of cheese cloth, fitted over the hat to hang down over the face, will protect that part of your anatomy from insects (Fig. 246), but if they are not very bad use fly dope (Fig. 251), and add a bottle of it to your pocket outfit. One doesn't look pretty when daubed up with fly dope, but we are in the woods for sport and adventure and not to look pretty. Our vanity case has no lip stick, rouge or face powder; it only possesses a toothbrush and a bottle of fly dope.
Certain times of year, when one goes camping in the neighborhood of the trout brooks, one needs toBe Prepared, for one can catch more trout and enjoy fishing better if protectedagainst the attacks of the black flies, mosquitoes, midges and "no-see-ums."
Figs 245-251
Anything swung by a strap across one's shoulder will in time "cut" the shoulders painfully unless they are protected by a pad (Fig. 246½). A few yards of mosquito netting or cheese cloth occupies little space and is of little weight, but is very useful as a protection at night. Bend a wand (Fig. 247) into a hoop and bind the ends together (Fig. 247A), with safety pins; pin this in the netting and suspend the net from its center by a stick (Fig. 248).
The black fly, C (Fig. 249), is a very small hump-backed pest, the young (larvæ) (Fig. 249a) live in cold, clear running water;Fig. 249bis the cocoon.
There are many kinds of mosquitoes; all of them are Bolsheviks, and with the black flies and other vermin they argue that since nature made them with blood suckers and provided you with the sort of blood that they like, they have an inherent right to suck your blood—and they do it!
But some mosquitoes are regular Huns and professional germ carriers, and besides annoying one they skillfully insert the germs of malaria and yellow fever into one's system. The malaria mosquitoes are known as anopheles. The highbrow name for the United States malaria distributor is "Anopheles quadrimaculatus" (Fig. 250F). It is only the females that you need fear; drone bees do not sting and buck mosquitoes do not bite.
Fig. 250dshows lower and upper side of the anopheles's egg.Fig. 250eis the wiggler or larvæ of the anopheles; the anopheles likes to let the blood run to its head, and any careful observer will know him at a glance from his pose while resting (Fig. 250g).
Of course, you will not need fly dope on the picnic grounds, and you will not need your pocket compass on the turnpike hike, and you will not need your jack-knife with which to eat at the boarding house or hotel, but we Boy Scouts are the real thing; we go to hotels and boarding houses and picnics when we must, but not when we can find real adventure in wilder places. We shout:
There is life in the roar of plunging streams,There is joy in the campfire's blaze at night.Hark! the elk bugles, the panther screams!And the shaggy bison roll and fight.Let your throbbing heart surge and bound,List to the whoop of the painted Reds;Pass the flapjacks merrily roundAs the gray wolf howls in the river beds.We weary of our cushions of rest;God of our Fathers, give back our West.What care we for luxury and ease?Darn the tall houses, give us tall trees!
However crude these verses may be, the sentiment is all right. But may be it will express our idea better if we do not attempt rhyme. Suppose we try it this way—
Listen to the whistle of the marmots;The hooting of the barred owl, the bugling of the elk!The yap, yap, yap of the coyote, the wild laugh of the loon;The dismal howl of the timber wolf,The grunting of the bull moose, the roaring of the torrent,And the crashing thunder of the avalanche!
Ah, that's the talk; these are the words and sounds that make the blood in one's veins tingle like ginger ale. Why do all red-blooded men and real American boys like to hear
The crunching of the dry snow;The flap, flap, flap of snowshoes;The clinking of the spurs and bits;The creaking of the saddle leather;The breathing of the bronco;The babbling of the rivulet;The whisper of the pines,The twitter of the birds.And the droning of bees.
Why? Because in these sounds we get the dampness of the moss, the almond-like odor of twin flowers, the burning dryness of the sand, the sting of the frost, the grit of the rocks and the tang of old mother earth! They possess the magic power of suggestion. By simply repeating these words we transport our souls to the wilderness, set our spirits free, and we are once again what God made us; natural and normal boys, listening to nature's great runes, odes, epics, lyrics, poems, ballads and roundelays, as sung by God's own bards!
Packing
When packing, remember that a partly filled bag (Fig. 252) is easy to pack, easy to carry on one's shoulders; but a tightly filled bag (Fig. 253) is a nuisance on the trail. When
Figs 252-271Making a Pack
Making a Pack
Making a Pack
To ship as baggage, fold the blankets lengthwise (Fig. 254), place them in the middle of your tarpaulin or floor cloth (Fig. 254); fold the cover over (Fig. 255), then tuck in the ends and roll the package into a bundle and cinch (Figs. 255and256). A
Sleeping-Bag
Can be improvised from one's blankets by the use of safety pins (Fig. 257). A section of the bag (Fig. 258) shows how the blankets are doubled. To make a
Back Pack
Fold as inFig. 259, then bend up the end as indicated byFigs. 260and261, fold again,Fig. 262, then fold in the two edges,Figs. 263and264, which show both sides of pack; bend over the top,Figs. 265and266, and strap ready to carry,Figs. 267and268. For a
Blanket Roll
Fold as inFig. 269; bend in the ends and roll (Fig. 270). Strap or lash the ends together (Fig. 271).
CHAPTER XSADDLES
Weknow that comparatively few of our boys take their hikes on horseback, especially their camping hikes. But a lot of their daddies and big brothers do take their horse, and the pack horse on their hunting and fishing trips, and every boy wants to know how to do the things his daddy knows how to do. Besides all that, the author is aware of the fact that the daddies and the uncles and the big brothers are reading all the stuff he puts out for the boys. They are constantly quoting to the author things that he has said to the boys, so that now in writing a book for the boys he must count them in.
Choose a Saddle that Fits
Everyone knows the misery of an ill-fitting shoe, and no one in his right mind would think of taking a prolonged hike in shoes that pinched his feet, but everybody does not know that a saddle should fit the rider; an ill-fitting saddle can cause almost as much discomfort as an ill-fitting shoe. The best all-around sportsman's saddle in the world is the cowboy saddle of the West. A writer in theSaturday Evening Post, who has written a delightfully intelligent article on saddles, in speaking of the Western cow-puncher's saddle, says:
"There are many good riders who have never thrown a leg over any other sort of saddle, and for work on the plains or in the mountains no man who has used one would ever care for any other type. It is as much a distinct product of this continent as is the birch bark canoe or the American axe or rifle."
Like the cowboy hat, the diamond hitch and the lariat, the cowboy saddle is evolved from the Spanish adaptation of the Moorish saddle. The old-fashioned Spanish saddle with the heavy wooden block stirrups, not the bent wood stirrups, but the big stirrups made out of blocks of wood (Fig. 273); such a saddle with stirrups often weighed over sixty pounds. These saddles were garnished with silver and gold, and the spurs that the rancheros wore had big wheels with "bells" on them, and spikes long enough to goad the thick skin of an elephant. I formerly possessed one of the picturesque old saddles on which all the leather work was engraved by hand, by the use of some tool like a graver, probably a sharpened nail; consequently none of the designs was duplicated.
In the good old cow days there were two sorts of saddles: the "California Center Fire" and the "Texas Double Chinch," and all those that I remember seeing had rather a short horn at the bow with a very broad top sometimes covered with a silver plate; the seat was also much longer than it is to-day.
Fig. 272shows a military saddle which is a modified cowboy saddle, andFig. 274shows a comparatively modern cowboy saddle. The up-to-date saddle of to-day has a bulge in front, not shown on the diagram.
In the olden days there were no societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and on the ranges horses were plenty; therefore, when one of the long-haired plainsmen, with his long rifle in front of him on the long saddle, and the heavy Spanish-American trappings to the horse, killed the horse by overwork, he simply took off his saddle and trappings, caught another horse, mounted it and continued his journey; there were plenty of horses—why should he worry?
Later when the cowboy age came in, the cowboys themselves on the Southern ranges used the Spanish-Americanoutfit; the only blessing the poor horse had was the blanket under the saddle.
figs 272-285Pack Train Outfit
Pack Train Outfit
When the block wooden stirrups were abandoned and the thinner oval stirrups adopted, the latter were protected by long caps of leather, the dangling ends of which were silver tipped. The cowboys themselves wore heavy leather breeches called chaps (an abbreviation of the Spanish chaparejo). Thus with the feet and legs protected they could ride through the cactus plants and dash through the mesquite country without fear of being pricked by the thorns, no matter what happened to the horse. Not only did this leather armor protect them from thorns and branches, but it also prevented many a broken leg resulting from kicks by burros, mules and horses.
The rolled coat or blanket, which the bronco busters on the lower ranges in early times lashed across the horse in front of their seat, is the thing from which the bucking roll was evolved, and the buckskin bucking roll, we are told, is the daddy of the swell or bulged front saddle now used.
The old-fashioned cowboy saddle has a narrow front, but about two decades ago
The Vidalia Saddle-tree
Migrated slowly from California over the plains, and was the first one to show the bulged front, and to change the narrow bow of the cow saddle to the bluff bow of the saddle as used to-day. It is claimed that while this protects the rider from injuries more or less, it has a tendency not to give a fellow the opportunity of as firm a grip with his legs as did the old narrow bowed cowboy seat. Later, in Oregon, they began to manufacture "incurved saddles," so that the rider's legs could fit better under the front, and the Wyoming saddle makers caught the idea, so that to-day the vanishing race ofcowboys are using saddles, which it would have taken a brave man to straddle in the early days, not because the saddle is dangerous but because it would have looked funny to the old-time boys, and they would not have been slow in giving expression to boisterous and discomforting merriment.
It is an odd thing, this law of growth or evolution, and itis a law, and a fixed law, certain peculiarities go together; for instance, if one goes systematically to work to produce fan-tail pigeons, one finds that he is also producing pigeons with feathered legs. The breeders have also discovered that in producing a chicken with silky white feathers they unwillingly produce a fowl with black meat. What has this got to do with saddles? Only that the same law holds good here: the more the front bulges in the saddle the more the horns shrivel, developing a tendency to rake forward and upward; the stirrups also dwindle in size. The saddle, which the writer possessed, has stirrups made of iron rings covered with leather and the caps were lined with sheep's wool. We read that now the narrow half-round oval stirrup is a favorite with the cow-punchers, which the cowboy uses with his foot thrust all the way in so that the weight of the rider rests upon the middle of the foot. This is as disturbing to the European idea of "proper form" as was the Declaration of Independence, but the Declaration of Independence has proved its efficiency by its results; so also has it been proved that for those who ride all day long the nearer they can come to standing on their feet, and at the same time relieving the feet of the total weight of the body by resting it on the saddle, the easier it is to stay in the saddle for long stretches of time; in other words, the more comfortable the saddle, the longer one can occupy it without discomfort, and that is the reason a saddle should fit the rider.
With Western Horses
One must use Western ways; remember the horses were educated in the West if you were not, but it is not necessary to use the cruel, old jaw-breaking Spanish bits with a ring on them. I have one, but it only hangs on the studio wall as a souvenir and a curious object of torture. But don't try a straight bit on a Western horse; he may spit it out and laugh at you; use the modern Western bits, saddles, and cinch and you will not go far wrong. Of course
The Pack Horse
Is another proposition, for here you will need a pack sawbuck saddle (Figs. 276,277,278and279); over this saddle you can swing your two saddle bags, called alforjas (Fig. 283).Fig. 284is after Stewart Edward White's diagram, and shows how the alforjas are lashed fast to the horse's back with a latigo (Fig. 285).Fig. 280is the lash rope which the man aboveFig. 284is using. In Chapter VII we tell how to throw the diamond hitch.Fig. 282shows the cowboy favorite cooking utensil, the old Dutch oven, and it is practically the same model as the one once belonging to Abraham Lincoln. A glance at the cross-section of the cover shows you how the edges are dented in to hold the hot ashes heaped on top of it when the bake oven is being used.Fig. 281is a sketch of two essentials for any sort of a trip: an axe and a frying pan.
Of course, one could write a whole book on horseback work, saddles and pack saddles. The truth is that one could write a whole book on any subject or any chapter in this book. But my aim is to start you off right; I believe that the way to learn to do a thingIs To Do It, and not depend upon your book knowledge. Therefore, when I write a book for you boys, I do the best I know how to make you understandwhat I am talking about, and to excite in your mind and heart a desire to do the things talked of; you must remember, however, that no one ever could learn to skate from a school of correspondence or a book, but one could gain a great deal of useful knowledge about anything from a useful book, knowledge that will be of great help when one is trying to do the things treated of in the book.
I can tell you with the aid of diagrams how to pack a blanket, and you can follow my diagrams and pack your blanket; but in order to ride, skate, swim or dance, you must gain the skill by practice. A book, however, can tell you the names of the part of the things.
Names of Parts of Saddle
For instance (Fig. 272), T is the saddle-tree; a good saddle-tree is made of five stout pieces of cottonwood which are covered with rawhide; when the rawhide shrinks it draws the pieces together more tightly and perfectly than they could be fastened by tongue and groove, glue, screws or nails; in fact, it makes one solid piece of the whole. The horn is fastened on to the tree by its branched legs, and covered with leather or braided rawhide. The shanks are covered first and then attached to the tree and the thongs are tacked to the saddle-tree, after which the bulged cover is fitted on. When a good saddle-tree is finished it is as much one piece as is the pelvis of a skeleton.
P is the pummel, A is the cantle. S is the side bar of the saddle-tree, C is a quarter strap side, B is the quarter strap cantle, E is the stirrup buckle, F is the outer strap safe, G is the cincha ring, H is the cincha cover; the cincha strap is unlettered but it connects the cincha ring with the quarter strap ring D; J is the cap or leather stirrup cover, L is thewooden stirrup, K is the horsehair cincha.Fig. 275is one of the saddle pads to fit under the saddle. OnFig. 274Mis the horn, N the cantle, O the whang leather, which your saddler will call tie strings.
You will note that inFig. 274there are two cinchas, and inFig. 272but one. You will also note that inFig. 274the skirt of your saddle seems to be double, or even triple, and the stirrup rigging comes on top of the skirt, and this is made up of the back jockey, front jockey, and side jockey or seat. Now then, you know all about horseback; there is nothing more I can tell you about the pack horse, but remember not to swell up with pride because of your vast knowledge, and try to ride an outlaw horse with an Eastern riding school bit. But acknowledge yourself a tenderfoot, a short horn, a shavetail, a Cheechako, and ask your Western friends to let you have a horse that knows all the tricks of his trade, but who has a compassionate heart for a greenhorn. There are lots of such good fellows among the Western horses, and they will treat you kindly. I know it because I have tried them, and as I said before, I make no boast of being a horseman myself. When I get astride of a Western horse I lean over and whisper in his ear, and confess to him just how green I am, and then put him on his honor to treat me white, and so far he has always done so.
CHAPTER XICHOOSING A CAMP SITE
Whenchoosing a camp site, if possible, choose a forest or grove of young trees. First, because of the shade they give you; secondly, because they protect you from storms, and thirdly, because they protect you from lightning.
Single trees, or small groups of trees in open pastures are exceedingly dangerous during a thunder storm; tall trees on the shores of a river or lake are particularly selected as targets for thunder bolts by the storm king. But the safest place in a thunder storm, next to a house, is a forest. The reason of this is that each wet tree is a lightning rod silently conducting the electric fluid without causing explosions. Do not camp at the foot of a very tall tree, or an old tree with dead branches on it, for a high wind may break off the branches and drop them on your head with disastrous results; the big tree itself may fall even when there is no wind at all.
Once I pitched my camp near an immense tree on the Flathead Indian Reservation. A few days later we returned to our old camp. As we stopped and looked at the site where our tents had been pitched we looked at each other solemnly, but said nothing, for there, prone upon the ground, lay that giant veteran tree!
But young trees do not fall down, and if they did they could not create the havoc caused by the immense bole of the patriarch of the forest when it comes crashing to the earth. A good scout must "Be Prepared," and to do so must remember that safety comes first, and too close neighborhood to a big tree is often unsafe.
Remember to choose the best camp site that can be found; do not travel all day, and as night comes on stop at any old place; but in the afternoon keep your eyes open for likely spots.
Halt early enough to give time to have everything snug and in order before dark.
In selecting camping ground, look for a place where good water and wood are handy. Choose a high spot with a gentle slope if possible; guard your spring or water hole from animals, for if the day is hot your dog will run ahead of the party and jump into the middle of the spring to cool himself, and horses and cattle will befoul the water.
If camping in the Western states on the shores of a shallow stream which lies along the trail, cross the stream before making camp or you may not be able to cross it for days. A chinook wind suddenly melting the snows in the distant mountains, or a cloud-burst miles and miles up stream, may suddenly send down to you a dangerous flood even in the dry season. I have known of parties being detained for days by one of these sudden roaring floods of water, which came unannounced, the great bole of mud, sticks and logs sweeping by their camp and taking with it everything in its path.
A belt of dense timber between camp and a pond or swamp will act as a protection from mosquitoes. As a rule, keep to windward of mosquito holes; the little insects travel with the wind, not against it. 'Ware ant hills, rotten wood infested with ants, for they make poor bedfellows and are a nuisance where the food is kept.
A bare spot on the earth, where there are no dry leaves, is a wind-swept spot; where the dust-covered leaves lie in heaps the wind does not blow. A windy place is generally free from mosquitoes, but it is a poor place to build a fire;a small bank is a great protection from high wind and twisters. During one tornado I had a camp under the lee of a small elevation; we only lost the fly of one tent out of a camp of fifty or more, while in more exposed places nearby great trees were uprooted and houses unroofed.
It must not be supposed that the camping season is past because the summer vacation is over. The real camping season begins in the Wild Rice Moon, that is, September. Even if school or business takes all our time during the week, we still have week-ends in which to camp. Saturday has always been a boys' day. Camping is an American institution, because America affords the greatest camping ground in the world.
The author is seated in his own log house, built by himself, on the shores of Big Tink Pond. Back of him there is pitched a camp of six rows of tents, which are filled with a joyful, noisy crowd of youngsters.
It is here in the mountains of Pike County, Pennsylvania, where the bluestone is stratified in horizontal layers, that one may study the camp from its very birth to the latest and finished product of this century.
Everywhere in these mountains there are outcroppings of the bluestone, and wherever the face of a ridge of this stone is exposed to the elements, the rains or melting snows cause the water to drip from the earth on top of the stone and trickle down over the face of the cliff. Then, when a cold snap turns the moisture into ice in every little crack in the rock, the expansion of the ice forces the sides of the cracks apart at the seams in the rock until loose pieces from the undersides slide off, leaving small spaces over which the rock projects. The little caves thus made make retreats for white-footed mice and other small mammals, chipmunks and caverats. When these become deeper they may become dens in which snakes sleep through the winter.
The openings never grow smaller, and in course of time are large enough for the coon, then the fox, and in olden times they made dens for wolves and panthers, or a place where the bear would "hole" up for the winter.
Time is not considered by Dame Nature; she has no trains to catch, and as years and centuries roll by the little openings in the bluestone become big enough to form a shelter for a crouching man, and the crouching man used them as a place in which to camp when the Norsemen in their dragon ships were braving the unknown ocean. When Columbus, with his toy boats, was blundering around the West Indies, the crouching man was camping under the bluestone ledges of old Pike County, Pennsylvania. There he built his campfires and cooked his beaver and bear and deer and elk, using dishes of pottery of his own make and ornamented with crude designs traced in the clay before the dishes were baked.
We know all this to be true history, because within a short walk of the author's log house there are overhanging ledges of bluestone, and underneath these ledges we, ourselves, have crouched and camped, and with sharp sticks have dug up the ground from the layer of earth covering the floor rock. And in this ground we have found bits of pottery, the split bones of different wild animals—split so that the savage camper might secure the rich marrow from the inside of the bones—arrowheads, bone awls and needles, tomahawks, the skulls of beaver and spearheads; all these things have been found under the overhanging bluestone.
Wherever such a bluestone ledge exists, one may make a good camp by closing up the front of the cave with sticks against the overhanging cliff and thatching the sticks withbrowse or balsam boughs, thus making the simplest form of a lean-to. The Indians used such shelters before the advent of the white man; Daniel Boone used them when he first visited Kentucky and, in spite of the great improvement in tents, the overhanging ledge is still used in Pennsylvania by fishermen and hunters for overnight camps.
But if one uses such a site for his overnight camp or his week's-end camp, one should not desecrate the ancient abode by introducing under its venerable roof, modern up-to-date cooking and camp material, but should exercise ingenuity and manufacture, as far as possible, the conveniences and furniture necessary for the camp.
Since the author is writing this in a camp in the woods, he will tell the practical things that confront him, even though he must mention a white man's shop broom.
In the first place, the most noticeable defect in the tenderfoot's work is the manner in which he handles his broom and wears the broom out of shape. A broom may be worn to a stub when properly used, but the lopsided broom is no use at all because the chump who handled it always used it one way until the broom became a useless, distorted, lopsided affair, with a permanent list to starboard or port, as the case may be.
To sweep properly is an art, and every all-around outdoor boy and man should learn to sweep and to handle the broom as skillfully as he does his gun or axe. In the first place, turn the broom every time you notice a tendency of the latter to become one-sided, then the broom will wear to a stub and still be of use. In the next place, do not swing the broom up in the air with each sweep and throw the dust up in the clouds, but so sweep that the end of the stroke keeps the broom near the floor or ground.
Now a word about making beds. In all books on woodcraft you are directed to secure balsam boughs from which to make your beds, and there is no better forest bedding than the fragrant balsam boughs, but unfortunately the mountain goose, as the hunters call it, from which you pluck the feathers to make your camp bed, is not to be found in all localities.
A bag filled with dry leaves, dry grass, hay or straw will make a very comfortable mattress; but we are not always in the hay and straw belt and dry leaves are sometimes difficult to secure; a scout, however, must learn to make a bed wherever he happens to be. If there happens to be a swale nearby where brakes and ferns grow luxuriantly, one can gather an armful of these, and with them make a mattress. The Interrupted fern, the Cinnamon, the Royal fern, the Lady fern, the Marsh fern and all the larger ferns are useful as material.
A camping party should have their work so divided that each one can immediately start at his own particular job the moment a halt is made. One chops up the firewood and sees that a plentiful supply of firewood is always on hand; usually he carries the water. One makes camp, puts up the tents, clears away the rubbish, fixes the beds, etc., while a third attends strictly to kitchen work, preparing the meals, and washing up the dishes.
With the labor divided in this manner, things run like clock work and camp is always neat and tidy. Roughing it is making the best of it; only a slob and a chump goes dirty and has a sloppy-looking camp. The real old time veteran and sourdough is a model of neatness and order. But a clean, orderly camp is much more important than a clean-faced camper. Some men think so much of themselves and their own personal cleanliness that they forget their duty to theothers. One's duty is about in this proportion: first to the animals if any, secondly to the men, and lastly to oneself.
Before pitching your tent, clear out a space for it to occupy; pick up the stones, rubbish and sticks, rake off the ground with a forked stick. But do not be rude to your brother, the ground pine; apologize for disturbing it; be gentle with the fronds of the fern; do not tear the trailing arbutus vine up by its roots, or the plant of the almond scented twin flowers; ask pardon of the thallus of the lichen which you are trampling under your feet. Why? O! well—because they had first right to the place, and because such little civilities to the natural objects around you put your own mind in accord with nature, and make camping a much more enjoyable affair.
When you feel you are sleeping on the breast ofyour mother, the earth, whileyour father, the sky, with his millions of eyes is watching over you, and that you are surrounded by your brother, the plants, the wilderness is no longer lonesome even to the solitary traveler.
Another reason for taking this point of view is that it has a humanizing effect and tends to prevent one from becoming a wilderness Hun and vandal. It also not only makes one hesitate to hack the trees unnecessarily, but encourages the camper to take pride in leaving a clean trail. As my good friend, John Muir, said to me: "The camping trip need not be the longest and most dangerous excursion up to the highest mountain, through the deepest woods or across the wildest torrents, glaciers or deserts, in order to be a happy one; but however short or long, rough or smooth, calm or stormy, it should be one in which the able, fearless camper sees the most, learns the most, loves the most and leaves the cleanest track; whose camp grounds are nevermarred by anything unsightly, scarred trees or blood spots or bones of animals."
It is not the object of this book to advertise, or even advise the use of any particular type of outfitting apparatus other than the plain, everyday affairs with which all are familiar. What we want to do is to start the reader right, then he may make his own choice, selecting an outfit to suit his own taste. There are no two men, for instance, who will sing the praise of the same sort of a tent, but there is perhaps no camper who has not used, and been very comfortable in, the old style wall tent. It has its disadvantages, and so has a house, a shack or a shanty. As a rule, the old wall tent is too heavy to carry with comfort and very difficult for one man to pitch alone—unless one knows how.