Under directions, the coarse browse of the previous night is placed

outside the shanty; three active youngsters, on hands and knees, feel

out and cut off every offending stub and root inside the shanty, until

it is smooth as a floor. The four small logs are brought to camp; the

two longest are laid at the sides and staked in place; the others are

placed, one at the head, the other at the foot, also staked; and the

camp has acquired definite outlines, and a measurable size of eight by

nine feet. Three hemlock logs and two sharpened stakes are toted to

camp; the stakes driven firmly, and the logs laid against them, one

above the other. Fire-dogs, fore-stick, etc., complete the arrangement,

and the camp-fire is in shape for the coming night, precisely as shown

in the engraving on page 33.

"And now," says the O. W., "if three of you will go down to the flat and

pick the browse clean from the two hemlock tops, Bush and I will fix a

cooking-range."

"A--what?" asks one.

"Going to start a boarding-house?" says another.

"Notion of going into the hardware business?" suggests a third.

"Never mind, sonny; just 'tend to that browse, and when you see a smoke

raising on the flat by the spring, come over and see the range." And the

boys, taking a couple of blankets in which to carry the browse, saunter

away to the flat below.

A very leisurely aesthetic, fragrant occupation is this picking browse.

It should never be cut, but pulled, stripped or broken. I have seen a

Senator, ex-Governor, and a wealthy banker enjoying themselves hugely at

it, varying the occupation by hacking small timber with their G. W.

hatchets, like so many boys let loose from school. It may have looked a

trifle undignified, but I dare say they found their account in it.

Newport or Long Branch would have been more expensive, and much less

healthful.

[Sidenote: The Cooking-Range]

For an hour and a half tongues and fingers are busy around the hemlock

tops; then a thin, long volume of blue smoke rises near the spring, and

the boys walk over to inspect the range. They find it made as follows:

Two logs six feet long and eight inches thick are laid parallel, but

seven inches apart at one end and only four at the other. They are

bedded firmly and flattened a little on the inside. On the upper sides

the logs are carefully hewed and leveled until pots, pans and kettles

will sit firmly and evenly on them. A strong forked stake is driven at

each end of the space, and a cross-pole, two or three inches thick, laid

on, for hanging kettles. This completes the range; simple, but

effective. (See illustration.) The broad end of the space is for

frying-pans, and the potato kettle. The narrow end, for coffee-pots and

utensils of lesser diameter. From six to eight dishes can be cooked at

the same time. Soups, stews, and beans are to be cooked in closely

covered kettles hung from the cross-pole, the bottoms of the kettles

reaching within some two inches of the logs. With a moderate fire they

may be left to simmer for hours without care or attention.

The fire is of the first importance. Start it with fine kindling and

clean, dry, hemlock bark. When you have a bright, even fire from end to

end of the space, keep it up with small fagots of the sweetest and most

wholesome woods in the forest. These are, in the order named, black

birch, hickory, sugar maple, yellow birch, and red beech. The sticks

should be short, and not over two inches across. Split wood is better

than round. The out-door range can be made by one man in little more

than an hour, and the camper-out, who once tries it, will never wish to

see a "portable camp-stove" again.

When the sun leaves the valley in the shade of Asaph Mountain, the boys

have a fragrant bed of elastic browse a foot deep in the shanty, with

pillows improvised from stuffed boot legs, cotton handkerchiefs, etc.

They cook their suppers on the range, and vote it perfect, no melting or

heating handles too hot for use, and no smoking of dishes, or faces.

[Illustration: OUT-DOOR COOKING-RANGE]

Just at dark--which means 9 P.M. in the last week of June--the fire is

carefully made and chinked. An hour later it is throwing its grateful

warmth and light directly into camp, and nowhere else. The camp turns

in. Not to wriggle and quarrel with obdurate stubs, but to sleep. And

sleep they do. The sound, deep, restful sleep of healthy young manhood,

inhaling pure mountain air on the healthiest bed yet known to man.

When it is past mid-night, and the fire burns low, and the chill night

breeze drifts into camp, they still do not rouse up, but only spoon

closer, and sleep right on. Only the O. W. turns out sleepily, at two

bells in the middle watch, after the manner of hunters, trappers, and

sailors, the world over. He quietly rebuilds the fire, reduces a bit of

navy plug to its lowest denomination, and takes a solitary smoke--still

holding down his favorite log. Quizzically and quietly he regards the

sleeping youngsters, and wonders if among them all there is one who will

do as he has done, i.e., relinquish all of what the world reckons as

success, for the love of nature and a free forest life. He hopes not.

And yet, as he glances at the calm yellow moon overhead, and listens to

the low murmur of the little waterfall below the spring, he has a faint

notion that it is not all loss and dross.

Knocking the ashes from his pipe he prepares to turn in, murmuring to

himself, half sadly, half humorously, "I have been young, and now I am

old; yet have I never seen the true woodsman forsaken, or his seed

begging bread--or anything else, so to speak--unless it might be a

little tobacco or a nip of whisky." And he creeps into his blanket-bag,

backs softly out to the outside man, and joins the snorers.

[Sidenote: Getting Breakfast]

It is broad daylight when he again turns out, leaving the rest still

sleeping soundly. He starts a lively fire in the range, treats two

coffee pots to a double handful of coffee and three pints of water each,

sets on the potato kettle, washes the potatoes, then sticks his head

into the camp, and rouses the party with a regular second mate's hail.

"Star-a-ar-bo'lin's aho-o-o-y. Turn out, you beggars. Come on deck and

see it rain." And the boys do turn out. Not with wakeful alacrity, but

in a dazed, dreamy, sleepy way. They open wide eyes, when they see that

the sun is turning the sombre tops of pines and hemlocks to a soft

orange yellow.

"I'd have sworn," says one, "that I hadn't slept over fifteen minutes by

the watch."

"And I," says another, "was just watching the fire, when I dropped off

in a doze. In about five minutes I opened my eyes, and I'll be shot if

it wasn't sunrise."

"As for me," says a third, "I don't know as I've slept at all. I

remember seeing somebody poking the fire last night. Next thing I knew,

some lunatic was yelling around camp about 'starbolin's,' and 'turning

out.' Guess I'll lay down and have my nap out."

"Yes," says the O. W., "I would. If I was a healthy youngster, and

couldn't get along with seven hours and a half of solid sleep, I'd take

the next forenoon for it. Just at present, I want to remark that I've

got the coffee and potato business underway, and I'll attend to them. If

you want anything else for breakfast, you'll have to cook it."

And the boys, rising to the occasion, go about the breakfast with

willing hands. It is noticeable, however, that only one pan of trout is

cooked, two of the youngsters preferring to fall back on broiled ham,

remarking that brook trout is too rich and cloying for a steady diet.

Which is true. The appetite for trout has very sensibly subsided, and

the boyish eagerness for trout fishing has fallen off immensely. Only

two of the party show any interest in the riffles. They stroll down

stream leisurely, to try their flies for an hour or two. The others

elect to amuse themselves about the camp, cutting small timber with

their little hatchets, picking fresh browse, or skirmishing the mountain

side for wintergreen berries and sassafras. The fishermen return in a

couple of hours, with a score of fair-sized trout. They remark

apologetically that it is blazing hot--and there are plenty of trout

ahead. Then they lean their rods against the shanty, and lounge on the

blankets, and smoke and dose.

It is less than forty-eight hours since the cross-pole was laid; and,

using a little common sense woodcraft, the camp has already attained to

a systematic no-system of rest, freedom and idleness. Every man is free

to "loaf, and invite his soul." There is good trouting within an hour's

walk for those who choose, and there is some interest, with a little

exercise, in cooking and cutting night wood, slicking up, etc. But the

whole party is stricken with "camp-fever," "Indian laziness," the _dolce

far niente_. It is over and around every man, enveloping him as with a

roseate blanket from the Castle of Indolence.

It is the perfect summer camp.

And it is no myth; but a literal resume of a five days' outing at Poplar

Spring, on Marsh Creek, in Pennsylvania. Alas, for the beautiful valley,

that once afforded the finest camping grounds I have ever known.

Never any more

Can it be

Unto me (or anybody else)

As before.

A huge tannery, six miles above Poplar Spring, poisons and blackens the

stream with chemicals, bark and ooze. The land has been brought into

market, and every acre eagerly bought up by actual settlers. The once

fine covers and thickets are converted into fields thickly dotted with

blackened stumps. And, to crown the desolation, heavy laden trains of

"The Pine Creek and Jersey Shore R. R." go thundering almost hourly over

the very spot where stood our camp by Poplar Spring.

[Sidenote: Progress?]

Of course, this is progress; but, whether backward or forward, had

better be decided sixty years hence. And, just what has happened to the

obscure valley of Marsh Creek, is happening today, on a larger scale,

all over the land. It is the same old story of grab and greed. Let us go

on the "make" today, and "whack up" tomorrow; cheating each other as

villainously as we may, and posterity be d--d. "What's all the w-u-u-rld

to a man when his wife is a widdy?"

This is the moral: From Maine to Montana; from the Adirondacks to

Alaska; from the Yosemite to the Yellowstone, the trout-hog, the

deer-wolf, the netter, the skin-hunter, each and all have it their own

way; and the law is a farce--only to be enforced where the game has

vanished forever. Perhaps the man-child is born who will live to write

the moral of all this--when it is too late.

Chapter VII

MORE HINTS ON COOKING, WITH SOME SIMPLE RECEIPTS--BREAD,

COFFEE, POTATOES, SOUPS, STEWS, BEANS, FISH, MEAT, VENISON

We may live without friends, we may live without books,

But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

It is probably true that nothing connected with out-door life in camp is

so badly botched as the cooking. It is not through any lack of the raw

material, which may be had of excellent quality in any country village.

It is not from lack of intelligence or education, for the men you meet

in the woods, as outers or sportsmen, are rather over than under the

average in these respects. Perhaps it is because it has been dinned into

our ears from early childhood, that an appetite, a healthy longing for

something good to eat, a tickling of the palate with wholesome,

appetizing food, is beneath the attention of an aesthetic, intellectual

man. Forgetting that the entire man, mental and physical, depends on

proper aliment and the healthy assimilation thereof; and that a thin,

dyspeptic man can no more keep up in the struggle of life, than the

lightning express can make connections, drawn by a worn out locomotive.

I have never been able to get much help from cook-books, or the scores

of recipes published in various works on out-door sport. Take, for

example, Frank Forester's "Fish and Fishing." He has more than seventy

recipes for cooking fish, over forty of which contain terms or names in

French. I dare say they are good--for a first-class hotel. I neither

cook nor converse in French, and I have come to know that the plainest

cooking is the best, so that it be well done and wholesome. In making up

the rations for camping out, the first thing usually attended to is

bread. And if this be light, well-made bread, enough may be taken along

to last four or five days, and this may be eked out with Boston

crackers, or the best hard-tack, for a couple or three days more,

without the least hardship. Also, there are few camps in which some one

is not going out to the clearings every few days for mail, small stores,

etc., and a supply of bread can be arranged for, with less trouble than

it can be made. There are times, however, when this is not feasible, and

there are men who prefer warm bread all the time. In this case the usual

resort, from Maine to Alaska, is the universal flapjack. I do not like

it; I seldom make it; it is not good. But it may be eaten, with maple

syrup or sugar and butter. I prefer a plain water Johnnycake, made as

follows (supposing your tins are something like those described in

Chapter II): Put a little more than a pint of water in your kettle and

bring it to a sharp boil, adding a small teaspoonful of salt, and two of

sugar. Stir in slowly enough good corn meal to make a rather stiff mush,

let it cook a few minutes, and set it off the fire; then grease your

largest tin dish and put the mush in it, smoothing it on top. Set the

dish on the out-door range described in the previous chapter, with a

lively bed of coal beneath--but no blaze. Invert the second sized tin

over the cake, and cover the dish with bright live coals, that bottom

and top may bake evenly, and give it from thirty-five to forty minutes

for baking. It makes wholesome, palatable bread, which gains on the

taste with use.

Those who prefer wheat bread can make a passable article by using the

best wheat flour with baking powders, mixing three tablespoonfuls of the

powders to a quart of flour. Mix and knead thoroughly with warm water to

a rather thin dough, and bake as above. Use the same proportions for

pancake batter. When stopping in a permanent camp with plenty of time to

cook, excellent light bread may be made by using dry yeast cakes, though

it is not necessary to "set" the sponge as directed on the papers.

Scrape and dissolve half a cake of the yeast in a gill of warm water,

and mix it with the flour. Add warm water enough to make it pliable, and

not too stiff; set in a warm place until it rises sufficiently, and

bake as directed above. It takes several hours to rise.

I am afraid I shall discount my credit on camp cooking when I admit

that--if I must use fine flour--I prefer unleavened bread; what my

friends irreverently call "club bread." Not that it was ever made or

endorsed by any club of men that I know of, but because it is baked on a

veritable club, sassafras or black birch. This is how to make it: Cut a

club two feet long and three inches thick at the broadest end; peel or

shave off the bark smoothly, and sharpen the smaller end neatly. Then

stick the sharpened end in the ground near the fire, leaning the broad

end toward a bed of live coals, where it will get screeching hot. While

it is heating, mix rather more than a half pint of best Minnesota flour

with enough warm water to make a dough. Add a half teaspoonful of salt,

and a teaspoonful of sugar, and mould and pull the dough until it

becomes lively. Now, work it into a ribbon two inches wide and half an

inch thick, wind the ribbon spirally around the broad end of the club,

stick the latter in front of the fire so that the bread will bake evenly

and quickly to a light brown, and turn frequently until done, which will

be in about thirty minutes. When done take it from the fire, stand the

club firmly upright, and pick the bread off in pieces as you want it to

eat. It will keep hot a long time, and one soon becomes fond of it.

[Sidenote: _Coffee_]

To make perfect coffee, just two ingredients are necessary, and only

two. These are water and coffee. It is owing to the bad management of

the latter that we drink poor coffee.

Mocha is generally considered to be the best type of coffee, with Java a

close second. It is the fashion at present to mix the two in proportions

to suit, some taking two parts Java to one of Mocha, others reversing

these proportions. Either way is good, or the Mocha is quite as good

alone. But there is a better berry than either for the genuine coffee

toper. This is the small, dark green berry that comes to market under

the generic name of Rio, that name covering half a dozen grades of

coffee raised in different provinces of Brazil, throughout a country

extending north and south for more than 1,200 miles. The berry alluded

to is produced along the range of high hills to the westward of Bahia,

and extending north toward the Parnahiba. It has never arrested

attention as a distinct grade of the article, but it contains more

coffee or caffein to the pound than any berry known to commerce. It is

the smallest, heaviest and darkest green of any coffee that comes to our

market from Brazil, and may be known by these traits. I have tested it

in the land where it is grown, and also at home, for the past sixteen

years, and I place it at the head of the list, with Mocha next. Either

will make perfect coffee, if treated as follows: Of the berry, browned

and ground, take six heaping tablespoonfuls, and add three pints of cold

water; place the kettle over the fire and bring to a sharp boil; set it

a little aside where it will bubble and simmer until wanted, and just

before pouring, drip in a half gill of cold water to settle it. That is

all there is to it. The quantity of berry is about twice as much as

usually given in recipes; but if you want coffee, you had better add two

spoonfuls than cut off one.

In 1867, and again in 1870, I had occasion to visit the West India

Islands and Brazil. In common with most coffee topers, I had heard much

of the super-excellence ascribed to "West India coffee" and "Brazilian

coffee." I concluded to investigate. I had rooms at the Hotel d'Europe,

Para, North Brazil. There were six of us, English and American boarders.

Every morning, before we were out of our hammocks, a barefooted, half

naked Mina negress came around and served each of us with a small cup of

strong, black coffee, and sugar ad libitum. There was not enough of it

for a drink; it was rather in the nature of a medicine, and so

intended--"To kill the biscos," they said. The coffee was above

criticism.

I went, in the dark of a tropical morning, with Senhor Joao, to the

coffee factory where they browned the berry, and saw him buy a pound,

smoking hot, for which he paid twenty-five cents, or quite as much as it

would cost in New York. In ten minutes the coffee was at the hotel, and

ground. This is the way they brewed it: A round-bottomed kettle was

sitting on the brick range, with a half gallon of boiling water in it.

Over the kettle a square piece of white flannel was suspended, caught up

at the corners like a dip net. In this the coffee was placed, and a

small darky put in his time steadily with a soup ladle, dipping the

boiling water from the kettle and pouring it on the coffee. There was a

constant stream percolating through coffee and cloth, which, in the

course of half an hour, became almost black, and clear as brandy. This

was "Brazilian coffee." As the cups used were very small, and as none

but the Northerners drank more than one cup, I found that the hotel did

not use over two quarts of coffee each morning. It struck me that a

pound of fresh Rio coffee berry ought to make a half gallon of rather

powerful coffee.

On my arrival home--not having any small darky or any convenient

arrangement for the dip net--I had a sack made of light, white flannel,

holding about one pint. In this I put one-quarter pound of freshly

ground berry, with water enough for five large cups. It was boiled

thoroughly, and proved just as good as the Brazilian article, but too

strong for any of the family except the writer. Those who have a fancy

for clear, strong "Brazilian coffee," will see how easily and simply it

can be made.

But, on a heavy knapsack-and-rifle tramp among the mountains, or a lone

canoe cruise in a strange wilderness, I do not carry coffee. I prefer

tea. Often, when too utterly tired and beaten for further travel, I have

tried coffee, whisky or brandy, and a long experience convinces me that

there is nothing so restful and refreshing to an exhausted man as a dish

of strong, green tea. To make it as it should be made, bring the water

to a high boil, and let it continue to boil for a full minute. Set it

off the fire and it will cease boiling; put in a handful of tea, and it

will instantly boil up again; then set it near the fire, where it will

simmer for a few minutes, when it will be ready for use. Buy the best

green tea you can find, and use it freely on a hard tramp. Black, or

Oolong tea, is excellent in camp. It should be put in the pot with cold

water and brought to the boiling point.

[Sidenote: _Potatoes_]

Almost any man can cook potatoes, but few cook them well. Most people

think them best boiled in their jackets, and to cook them perfectly in

this manner is so simple and easy, that the wonder is how any one can

fail. A kettle of screeching hot water with a small handful of salt in

it, good potatoes of nearly equal size, washed clean and clipped at the

ends, these are the requisites. Put the potatoes in the boiling water,

cover closely, and keep the water at high boiling pitch until you can

thrust a sharp sliver through the largest potato. Then drain off the

water, and set the kettle in a hot place with the lid partly off. Take

them out only as they are wanted; luke-warm potatoes are not good. They

will be found about as good as potatoes can be, when cooked in their

jackets. But there is a better way, as thus: Select enough for a mess,

of smooth, sound tubers; pare them carefully, taking off as little as

possible, because the best of the potato lies nearest the skin, and cook

as above. When done, pour the water off to the last drop; sprinkle a

spoonful of salt and fine cracker crumbs over them; then shake, roll,

and rattle them in the kettle until the outsides are white and floury.

Keep them piping hot until wanted. It is the way to have perfect boiled

potatoes.

Many outers are fond of roast potatoes in camp; and they mostly spoil

them in the roasting, although there is no better place than the

camp-fire in which to do it. To cook them aright, scoop out a basinlike

depression under the fore-stick, three or four inches deep, and large

enough to hold the tubers when laid side by side; fill it with bright,

hard-wood coals, and keep up a strong heat for half an hour or more.

Next, clean out the hollow, place the potatoes in it, and cover them

with hot sand or ashes, topped with a heap of glowing coals, and keep up

all the heat you like. In about forty minutes commence to try them with

a sharpened hard-wood sliver; when this will pass through them they are

done, and should be raked out at once. Run the sliver through them from

end to end, to let the steam escape, and use immediately, as a roast

potato quickly becomes soggy and bitter. I will add that, in selecting a

supply of potatoes for camp, only the finest and smoothest should be

taken.

A man may be a trout-crank, he may have been looking forward for ten

weary months to the time when he is to strike the much dreamed of

mountain stream, where trout may be taken and eaten without stint.

Occasionally--not often--his dream is realized. For two or three days he

revels in fly-fishing, and eating brook trout. Then his enthusiasm

begins to subside. He talks less of his favorite flies, and hints that

wading hour after hour in ice-water gives him cramps in the calves of

his legs. Also, he finds that brook trout, eaten for days in succession,

pall on the appetite. He hankers for the flesh-pots of the restaurant,

and his soul yearns for the bean-pot of home.

Luckily, some one has brought a sack of white beans, and the

expert--there is always an expert in camp--is deputed to cook them. He

accepts the trust, and proceeds to do it. He puts a quart of dry beans

and a liberal chunk of pork in a two-quart kettle, covers the mess with

water, and brings it to a rapid boil. Presently the beans begin to swell

and lift the lid of the kettle; their conduct is simply demoniacal. They

lift up the lid of the kettle, they tumble out over the rim in a way to

provoke a saint, and they have scarcely begun to cook. The expert is not

to be beaten. As they rise, he spoons them out and throws them away,

until half of the best beans being wasted, the rest settle to business.

He fills the kettle with water and watches it for an hour. When

bean-skins and scum arise he uses the spoon; and when a ring of greasy

salt forms around the rim of the kettle, he carefully scrapes it off,

but most of it drops back into the pot. When the beans seem cooked to

the point of disintegration, he lifts off the kettle, and announces

dinner. It is not a success. The largest beans are granulated rather

than cooked, while the mealy portion of them has fallen to the bottom of

the kettle, and become scorched thereon, and the smaller beans are too

hard to be eatable. The liquid, that should be palatable bean soup, is

greasy salt water, and the pork is half raw. The party falls back,

hungry and disgusted. Even if the mess were well cooked, it is too salt

for eating. And why should this be so? Why should any sensible man spend

years in acquiring an education that shall fit him for the struggle of

life, yet refuse to spend a single day in learning how to cook the food

that must sustain the life? It is one of the conundrums no one will ever

find out.

[Sidenote: _Beans_]

There is no article of food more easily carried, and none that contains

more nourishment to the pound, than the bean. Limas are usually

preferred, but the large white marrow is just as good. It will pay to

select them carefully. Keep an eye on grocery stocks, and when you

strike a lot of extra large, clean beans, buy twice as many as you need

for camp use. Spread them on a table, a quart at a time, and separate

the largest and best from the others. Fully one-half will go to the side

of the largest and finest, and these may be put in a muslin bag, and

kept till wanted. Select the expeditionary pork with equal care, buying

nothing but thick, solid, "clear," with a pink tinge. Reject that which

is white and lardy. With such material, if you cannot lay over Boston

baked beans, you had better sweep the cook out of camp.

This is how to cook them: Put a pound or a little more of clean pork in

the kettle, with water enough to cover it. Let it boil slowly half an

hour. In the meantime, wash and parboil one pint of beans. Drain the

water from the pork and place the beans around it; add two quarts of

water and hang the kettle where it will boil steadily, but not rapidly,

for two hours. Pare neatly and thinly five or six medium sized potatoes,

and allow them from thirty to forty minutes (according to size and

variety), in which to cook. They must be pressed down among the beans so

as to be entirely covered. If the beans be fresh and fine they will

probably fall to pieces before time is up. This, if they are not allowed

to scorch, makes them all the better. If a portion of pork be left over,

it is excellent sliced very thin when cold, and eaten with bread. The

above is a dinner for three or four hungry men.

It is usually the case that some of the party prefer baked beans. To

have these in perfection, add one gill of raw beans and a piece of pork

three inches square to the foregoing proportions. Boil as above, until

the beans begin to crack open; then fork out the smaller piece of pork,

place it in the center of your largest cooking tin, take beans enough

from the kettle to nearly fill the tin, set it over a bright fire on the

range, invert the second sized tin for a cover, place live, hard-wood

coals on top, and bake precisely as directed for bread--only, when the

coals on top become dull and black, brush them off, raise the cover, and

take a look. If the beans are getting too dry, add three or four

spoonfuls of liquor from the kettle, replace cover and coals, and let

them bake until they are of a rich light brown on top. Then serve. It is

a good dish. If Boston can beat it, I don't want to lay up anything for

old age.

Brown bread and baked beans have a natural connection in the average

American mind, and rightly. They supplement each other, even as spring

lamb and green peas with our transatlantic cousins. But there is a

better recipe for brown bread than is known to the dwellers of the

Hub--one that has captured first prizes at country fairs, and won the

approval of epicures from Maine to Minnesota; the one that brought

honest old Greeley down, on his strictures anent "country bread." And

here is the recipe; take it for what it is worth, and try it fairly

before condemning it. It is for home use: One quart of sweet milk, one

quart of sour, two quarts of Indian meal and one quart of flour, and a

cupful of dark, thin Porto Rico molasses. Use one teaspoonful of soda

only. Bake in a steady, moderate oven, for four hours. Knead thoroughly

before baking.

Soup is, or should be, a leading food element in every woodland camp. I

am sorry to say that nothing is, as a rule, more badly botched, while

nothing is more easily or simply cooked as it should be. Soup requires

time, and a solid basis of the right material. Venison is the basis, and

the best material is the bloody part of the deer, where the bullet went

through. We used to throw this away; we have learned better. Cut about

four pounds of the bloody meat into convenient pieces, and wipe them as

clean as possible with leaves or a damp cloth, but don't wash them. Put

the meat into a five-quart kettle nearly filled with water, and raise it

to a lively boiling pitch. Let it boil for two hours. Have ready a

three-tined fork made from a branch of birch or beech, and with this

test the meat from time to time; when it parts readily from the bones,

slice in a large onion. Pare six large, smooth potatoes, cut five of

them into quarters, and drop them into the kettle; scrape the sixth one

into the soup for thickening. Season with salt and white pepper to

taste.

When, by skirmishing with the wooden fork, you can fish up bones with no

meat on them, the soup is cooked, and the kettle may be set aside to

cool. Any hungry sportsman can order the next motion. Squirrels--red,

black, gray or fox--make nearly as good a soup as venison, and better

stew. Hares, rabbits, grouse, quail, or any of the smaller game birds,

may be used in making soup; but all small game is better in a stew.

[Sidenote: _Stews and Fries_]

To make a stew, proceed for the first two hours precisely as directed

for soup; then slice in a couple of good-sized onions and six medium

potatoes. When the meat begins to fall from the bones, make a thickening

by rubbing three tablespoonfuls of flour and two spoonfuls of melted

butter together; thin to the consistency of cream with liquor from the

kettle, and drip slowly into the stew, stirring briskly meanwhile. Allow

all soups and stews to boil two hours before seasoning, and use only the

best table salt and white (or black) pepper. Season sparingly; it is

easier to put salt in than to get it out. Cayenne pepper adds zest to a

soup or stew, but, as some dislike it, let each man season his plate to

his own cheek.

Fried squirrels are excellent for a change, but are mostly spoiled by

poor cooks, who put tough old he's and tender young squirrels together,

treating all alike. To dress and cook them properly, chop off heads,

tails and feet with the hatchet; cut the skin on the back crosswise,

and, inserting the two middle fingers, pull the skin off in two parts,

(head and tail). Clean and cut them in halves, leaving two ribs on the

hindquarters. Put hind and fore quarters into the kettle, and parboil

until tender. This will take about twenty minutes for young ones, and

twice as long for the old.

When a sharpened sliver will pass easily through the flesh, take the

hindquarters from the kettle, drain, and place them in the frying-pan

with pork fat hissing hot. Fry to a light, rich brown. It is the only

proper way to cook squirrels. The forequarters are to be left in the

kettle for a stew.

It sometimes happens that pigeons are very plentiful, and the camp is

tempted into over-shooting and over-cooking, until every one is

thoroughly sick of pigeons. This is all wrong. No party is, or can be,

justified in wanton slaughter, just because birds happen to be

plentiful; they will soon be scarce enough. Pigeons are hardly game, and

they are not a first-class bird; but a good deal may be got out of them

by the following method: Dress them, at the rate of two birds to one

man; save the giblets; place in the kettle, and boil until the sliver

will easily pierce the breast; fork them out, cut the thick meat from

each side of the breast bone, roll slightly in flour, and put the pieces

in the pan, frying them in the same way as directed for squirrels. Put

the remainder of the birds in the kettle for a stew.

Quail are good cooked in the same manner, but are better roasted or

broiled. To roast them, parboil for fifteen minutes, and in the meantime

cut a thin hard-wood stick, eighteen inches long for each bird. Sharpen

the sticks neatly at both ends; impale the birds on one end and thrust

the sticks into the ground near the fire, leaning them so that the heat

will strike strongly and evenly. Hang a strip of pork between the legs

of each bird, and turn frequently until they are a rich brown. When the

sharpened sliver will pass easily through the breast they are done.

Woodcock are to be plucked, but not drawn. Suspend the bird in a bright,

clear heat, hang a ribbon of fat pork between the legs, and roast until

well done; do not parboil him.

Ruffed grouse are excellent roasted in the same manner, but should first

be parboiled. Mallards, teal, butterballs, all edible ducks, are to be

treated the same as grouse. If you are ever lucky enough to feast on a

canvas-back roasted as above, you will be apt to borrow a leaf from

Oliver Twist.

Venison steak should be pounded to tenderness, pressed and worked into

shape with the hunting-knife, and broiled over a bed of clean hard-wood

coals. A three-pronged birch fork makes the best broiler. For roast

venison, the best portion is the forward part of the saddle. Trim off

the flanky parts and ends of the ribs; split the backbone lengthwise,

that the inner surface may be well exposed; hang it by a strong cord or

bark string in a powerful, even heat; lay thin strips of pork along the

upper edge, and turn from time to time until done. It had better be left

a little rare than overdone. Next to the saddle for roasting, comes the

shoulder. Peel this smoothly from the side, using the hunting knife;

trim neatly, and cut off the leg at the knee; gash the thickest part of

the flesh, and press shreds of pork into the gashes, with two or three

thin slices skewered to the upper part. Treat it in the roasting as

described above. It is not equal to the saddle when warm, but sliced and

eaten cold, is quite as good.

And do not despise the fretful porcupine; he is better than he looks. If

you happen on a healthy young specimen when you are needing meat, give

him a show before condemning him. Shoot him humanely in the head, and

dress him. It is easily done; there are no quills on the belly, and the

skin peels as freely as a rabbit's. Take him to camp, parboil him for

thirty minutes, and roast or broil him to a rich brown over a bed of

glowing coals. He will need no pork to make him juicy, and you will find

him very like spring lamb, only better.

I do not accept the decision that ranks the little gray rabbit as a

hare, simply because he has a slit in his lip; at all events I shall

call him a rabbit for convenience, to distinguish him from his

long-legged cousin, who turns white in winter, never takes to a hole,

and can keep ahead of hounds nearly all day, affording a game, musical

chase that is seldom out of hearing. He never by any chance has an ounce

of fat on him, and is not very good eating. He can, however, be worked

into a good stew or a passable soup--provided he has not been feeding on

laurel. The rabbit is an animal of different habits, and different

attributes. When jumped from his form, he is apt to "dig out" for a hole

or the nearest stone heap. Sometimes an old one will potter around a

thicket, ahead of a slow dog, but his tendency is always to hole. But he

affords some sport, and as an article of food, beats the long-legged

hare out of sight. He is excellent in stews or soups, while the after

half of him, flattened down with the hatchet, parboiled and fried brown

in butter or pork fat, is equal to spring chicken.

[Sidenote: _Fish_]

In the cooking of fish, as of flesh and fowl, the plainest and simplest

methods are best; and for anything under two pounds, it is not necessary

to go beyond the frying-pan. Trout of over a pound should be split down

the back, that they may lie well in the pan, and cook evenly. Roll well

in meal, or a mixture of meal and flour, and fry to a rich brown in pork

fat, piping hot. Larger fish may just as well be fried, but are also

adapted to other methods, and there are people who like fish broiled and

buttered, or boiled. To broil a fish, split him on the back and broil

him four minutes, flesh side down, turn and broil the other side an

equal time. Butter and season to taste. To boil, the fish should weigh

three pounds or more. Clean, and crimp him by gashing the sides deeply

with a sharp knife. Put him in a kettle of boiling water strongly

salted, and boil twenty-five minutes. For each additional pound above

three, add five minutes. For gravy, rub together two tablespoonfuls of

flour and one of melted butter, add one heaping teaspoonful of

evaporated milk, and thin with liquor from the kettle. When done, it

should have the consistency of cream. Take the fish from the kettle,

drain, pour the gravy over it, and eat only with wheat bread or

hard-tack, with butter. The simplest is best, healthiest, and most

appetizing.

As a rule, on a mountain tramp or a canoe cruise, I do not tote canned

goods. I carry my duffle in a light, pliable knapsack, and there is an

aggravating antagonism between the uncompromising rims of a fruit-can,

and the knobs of my vertebrae, that twenty years of practice have

utterly failed to reconcile. And yet, I have found my account in a can

of condensed milk, not for tea or coffee, but on bread as a substitute

for butter. And I have found a small can of Boston baked beans a most

helpful lunch, with a nine-mile carry ahead. It was not epicurean, but

had staying qualities.

I often have a call to pilot some muscular young friend into the deep

forest, and he usually carries a large pack-basket, with a full supply

of quart cans of salmon, tomatoes, peaches, etc. As in duty bound, I

admonish him kindly, but firmly, on the folly of loading his young

shoulders with such effeminate luxuries; often, I fear, hurting his

young feelings by brusque advice. But at night, when the camp-fire burns

brightly, and he begins to fish out his tins, the heart of the Old

Woodsman relents, and I make amends by allowing him to divide the

groceries.

There is a method of cooking usually called "mudding up," which I have

found to preserve the flavor and juiciness of ducks, grouse, etc.,

better than any other method. I described the method in _Forest and

Stream_ more than a year ago, but a brief repetition may not be out of

place here. Suppose the bird to be cooked is a mallard, or better still,

a canvas-back. Cut off the head and most part of the neck; cut off the

pinions and pull out the tail feathers, make a plastic cake of clay or

tenacious earth an inch thick, and large enough to envelop the bird, and

cover him with it snugly. Dig an oval pit under the fore-stick, large

enough to hold him, and fill it with hot coals, keeping up a strong

heat. Just before turning in for the night, clean out the pit, put in

the bird, cover with hot embers and coals, keeping up a brisk fire over

it all night. When taken out in the morning you will have an oval,

oblong mass of baked clay, with a well roasted bird inside. Let the mass

cool until it can be handled, break off the clay, and feathers and skin

will come with it, leaving the bird clean and skinless. Season it as you

eat, with salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon if you like, nothing

else.

[Sidenote: _Condiments_]

In selecting salt, choose that which has a gritty feel when rubbed

between the thumb and finger, and use white pepper rather than black,

grinding the berry yourself. Procure a common tin pepper-box, and fill

it with a mixture of fine salt and Cayenne pepper--ten spoonsfuls of the

former and one of the latter. Have it always where you can lay your hand

on it; you will come to use it daily in camp, and if you ever get lost,

you will find it of value. Fish and game have a flat, flashy taste eaten

without salt, and are also unwholesome.

Do not carry any of the one hundred and one condiments, sauces,

garnishes, etc., laid down in the books. Salt, pepper, and lemons fill

the bill in that line. Lobster-sauce, shrimp-sauce, marjoram, celery,

parsley, thyme, anchovies, etc., may be left at the hotels.

It may be expected that a pocket volume on woodcraft should contain a

liberal chapter of instruction on hunting. It would be quite useless.

Hunters, like poets, are born, not made. The art cannot be taught on

paper. A few simple hints, however, may not be misplaced. To start

aright, have your clothes fitted for hunting. Select good cassimere of a

sort of dull, no-colored, neutral tint, like a decayed stump, and have

coat, pants, and cap made of it. For foot-gear, two pairs of heavy yarn

socks, with rubber shoes or buckskin moccasins. In hunting, "silence is

gold." Go quietly, slowly, and silently. Remember that the bright-eyed,

sharp-eared woodfolk can see, hear and smell, with a keenness that

throws your dull faculties quite in the shade. As you go lumbering and

stick-breaking through the woods, you will never know how many of these

quietly leave your path to right and left, allowing you to pass, while

they glide away, unseen, unknown. It is easily seen that a sharp-sensed,

light-bodied denizen of the woods can detect the approach of a heavy,

bifurcated, booted animal, a long way ahead, and avoid him accordingly.

But there is an art, little known and practiced, that invariably

succeeds in outflanking most wild animals; an art, simple in conception

and execution, but requiring patience; a species, so to speak, of high

art in forestry--the art of "sitting on a log." I could enlarge on this.

I might say that the only writer of any note who has mentioned this

phase of woodcraft is Mr. Charles D. Warner; and he only speaks of it in

painting the character of that lazy old guide, "Old Phelps."

Sitting on a log includes a deal of patience, with oftentimes cold feet

and chattering teeth; but, attended to faithfully and patiently, is

quite as successful as chasing a deer all day on tracking snow, while it

can be practiced when the leaves are dry, and no other mode of

still-hunting offers the ghost of a chance. When a man is moving through

the woods, wary, watchful animals are pretty certain to catch sight of

him. But let him keep perfectly quiet and the conditions are reversed. I

have had my best luck, and killed my best deer, by practically waiting

hour after hour on runways. But the time when a hunter could get four or

five fair shots in a day by watching a runway has passed away forever.

Never any more will buffalo be seen in solid masses covering square

miles in one pack. The immense bands of elk and droves of deer are

things of the past, and "The game must go."

Chapter VIII

A TEN DAYS' TRIP IN THE WILDERNESS--GOING IT ALONE

About the only inducements I can think of for making a ten days' journey

through a strong wilderness, solitary and alone, were a liking for

adventure, intense love of nature in her wildest dress, and a strange

fondness for being in deep forests by myself. The choice of route was

determined by the fact that two old friends and schoolmates had chosen

to cast their lots in Michigan, one near Saginaw Bay, the other among

the pines of the Muskegon. And both were a little homesick, and both

wrote frequent letters, in which, knowing my weak point, they exhausted

their adjectives and adverbs in describing the abundance of game and the

marvelous fishing. Now, the Muskegon friend--Davis--was pretty well out

of reach. But Pete Williams, only a few miles out of Saginaw, was easily

accessible. And so it happened, on a bright October morning, when there

came a frost that cut from Maine to Missouri, that a sudden fancy took

me to use my new Billinghurst on something larger than squirrels. It

took about one minute to decide, and an hour to pack such duffle as I

needed for a few weeks in the woods.

Remembering Pete's two brown-eyed "kids," and knowing that they were

ague-stricken and homesick, I made place for a few apples and peaches,

with a ripe melon. For Pete and I had been chums in Rochester, and I had

bunked in his attic on Galusha Street, for two years. Also, his babies

thought as much of me as of their father. The trip to Saginaw was easy

and pleasant. A "Redbird" packet to Buffalo, the old propeller Globe to

Lower Saginaw, and a ride of half a day on a buckboard, brought me to

Pete Williams' clearing. Were they glad to see me? Well, I think so.

Pete and his wife cried like children, while the two little homesick

"kids" laid their silken heads on my knees and sobbed for very joy. When

I brought out the apples and peaches, assuring them that these came from

the little garden of their old home--liar that I was--their delight was

boundless. And the fact that their favorite tree was a "sour bough,"

while these were sweet, did not shake their faith in the least.

[Sidenote: _At Pete Williams'_]

I stayed ten days or more with the Williams family, and the fishing and

hunting were all that he had said--all that could be asked. The woods

swarmed with pigeons and squirrels; grouse, quail, ducks and wild

turkeys were too plentiful, while a good hunter could scarcely fail of

getting a standing shot at a deer in a morning's hunt. But, _cui bono_?

What use could be made of fish or game in such a place? They were all

half sick, and had little appetite. Mrs. Williams could not endure the

smell of fish; they had been cloyed on small game, and were surfeited on

venison.

My sporting ardor sank to zero. I had the decency not to slaughter game

for the love of killing, and leave it to rot, or hook large fish that

could not be used. I soon grew restless, and began to think often about

the lumber camp on the Muskegon. By surveyors' lines it was hardly more

than sixty miles from Pete Williams' clearing to the Joe Davis camp on

the Muskegon. "But practically," said Pete, "Joe and I are a thousand

miles apart. White men, as a rule, don't undertake to cross this

wilderness. The only one I know who has tried it is old Bill Hance; he

can tell you all about it."

Hance was the hunting and trapping genius of Saginaw Bay--a man who

dwelt in the woods summer and winter, and never trimmed his hair or wore

any other covering on his head. Not a misanthrope, or taciturn, but

friendly and talkative rather; liking best to live alone, but fond of

tramping across the woods to gossip with neighbors; a very tall man

withal, and so thin that, as he went rapidly winding and turning among

fallen logs, you looked to see him tangle up and tumble in a loose coil,

like a wet rope, but he was better than he looked. He had a high

reputation as trailer, guide, or trapper, and was mentioned as a "bad

man in a racket." I had met him several times, and as he was decidedly a

character, had rather laid myself out to cultivate him. And now that I

began to have a strong notion of crossing the woods alone, I took

counsel of Bill Hance. Unlike Williams, he thought it perfectly

feasible, and rather a neat, gamy thing for a youngster to do. He had

crossed the woods several times with surveying parties, and once alone.

He knew an Indian trail which led to an old camp within ten miles of the

Muskegon, and thought the trail could be followed. It took him a little

less than three days to go through; "but," he added, "I nat'rally travel

a little faster in the woods than most men. If you can follow the trail,

you ought to get through in a little more'n three days--if you keep

moggin'."

One afternoon I carefully packed the knapsack and organized for a long

woods tramp. I took little stock in that trail, or the three days'

notion as to time. I made calculations on losing the trail the first

day, and being out a full week. The outfit consisted of rifle, hatchet,

compass, blanket-bag, knapsack and knife. For rations, one loaf of

bread, two quarts of meal, two pounds of pork, one pound of sugar, with

tea, salt, etc., and a supply of jerked venison. One tin dish, twelve

rounds of ammunition, and the bullet-molds, filled the list, and did not

make a heavy load.

Early on a crisp, bright October morning I kissed the little fellows

good-bye, and started out with Hance, who was to put me on the trail. I

left the children with sorrow and pity at heart. I am glad now that my

visit was a golden hiatus in the sick monotony of their young lives, and

that I was able to brighten a few days of their dreary existence. They

had begged for the privilege of sleeping with me on a shake-down from

the first; and when, as often happened, a pair of little feverish lips

would murmur timidly and pleadingly, "I'm so dry; can I have er drink?"

I am thankful that I did not put the pleader off with a sip of tepid

water, but always brought it from the spring, sparkling and cold. For, a

twelvemonth later, there were two little graves in a corner of the

stump-blackened garden, and two sore hearts in Pete Williams' cabin.

Hance found the trail easily, but the Indians had been gone a long time,

and it was filled with leaves, dim, and not easy to follow. It ended as

nearly all trails do; it branched off to right and left, grew dimmer and

slimmer, degenerated to a deer path, petered out to a squirrel track,

ran up a tree, and ended in a knot hole. I was not sorry. It left me

free to follow my nose, my inclination, and--the compass.

There are men who, on finding themselves alone in a pathless forest,

become appalled, almost panic stricken. The vastness of an unbroken

wilderness subdues them, and they quail before the relentless, untamed

forces of nature. These are the men who grow enthusiastic--at

home--about sylvan life, out-door sports, but always strike camp and

come home rather sooner than they intended. And there be some who plunge

into an unbroken forest with a feeling of fresh, free, invigorating

delight, as they might dash into a crisp ocean surf on a hot day. These

know that nature is stern, hard, immovable and terrible in unrelenting

cruelty. When wintry winds are out and the mercury far below zero, she

will allow her most ardent lover to freeze on her snowy breast without

waving a leaf in pity, or offering him a match; and scores of her

devotees may starve to death in as many different languages before she

will offer a loaf of bread. She does not deal in matches and loaves;

rather in thunderbolts and granite mountains. And the ashes of her

camp-fires bury proud cities. But, like all tyrants, she yields to

force, and gives the more, the more she is beaten. She may starve or

freeze the poet, the scholar, the scientist; all the same, she has in

store food, fuel and shelter, which the skillful, self-reliant woodsman

can wring from her savage hand with axe and rifle.

Only to him whose coat of rags

Has pressed at night her regal feet,

Shall come the secrets, strange and sweet,

Of century pines and beetling crags.

For him the goddess shall unlock

The golden secrets which have lain

Ten thousand years, through frost and rain,

Deep in the bosom of the rock.

The trip was a long and tiresome one, considering the distance. There

were no hairbreadth escapes; I was not tackled by bears, treed by

wolves, or nearly killed by a hand-to-claw "racket" with a panther; and

there were no Indians to come sneak-hunting around after hair. Animal

life was abundant, exuberant, even. But the bright-eyed woodfolk seemed

tame, nay, almost friendly, and quite intent on minding their own

business. It was a "pigeon year," a "squirrel year," and also a

marvelous year for shack, or mast. Every nut-bearing tree was loaded

with sweet well-filled nuts; and this, coupled with the fact that the

Indians had left, and the whites had not yet got in, probably accounted

for the plentitude of game.

[Sidenote: _Wood Life_]

I do not think there was an hour of daylight on the trip when squirrels

were not too numerous to be counted, while pigeons were a constant

quantity from start to finish. Grouse in the thickets, and quail in the

high oak openings, or small prairies, with droves of wild turkeys among

heavy timber, were met with almost hourly, and there was scarcely a day

on which I could not have had a standing shot at a bear. But the most

interesting point about the game was--to me, at least--the marvelous

abundance of deer. They were everywhere, on all sorts of ground and

among all varieties of timber; very tame they were, too, often stopping

to look at the stranger, offering easy shots at short range, and finally

going off quite leisurely.

No ardent lover of forest life could be lonely in such company, and in

such weather. The only drawback was the harassing and vexatious manner

in which lakes, streams, swamps and marshes constantly persisted in

getting across the way, compelling long detours to the north or south,

when the true course was nearly due west. I think there were days on

which ten hours of pretty faithful tramping did not result in more than

three or four miles of direct headway. The headwaters of the Salt and

Chippewa rivers were especially obstructive; and, when more than half

the distance was covered, I ran into a tangle of small lakes, marshes

and swamps, not marked on the map, which cost a hard day's work to leave

behind.

While there were no startling adventures, and no danger connected with

the trip, there was a constant succession of incidents, that made the

lonely tramp far from monotonous. Some of these occurrences were

intensely interesting, and a little exciting. Perhaps the brief recital

of a few may not be uninteresting at the present day, when game is so

rapidly disappearing.

My rifle was a neat, hair-triggered Billinghurst, carrying sixty round

balls to the pound, a muzzle-loader, of course, and a nail-driver. I

made just three shots in ten days, and each shot stood for a plump young

deer in the "short blue." It seemed wicked to murder such a bright,

graceful animal, when no more than the loins and a couple of slices from

the ham could be used, leaving the balance to the wolves, who never

failed to take possession before I was out of ear shot. But I condoned

the excess, if excess it were, by the many chances I allowed to pass,

not only on deer but bear, and once on a big brute of a wild hog, the

wickedest and most formidable looking animal I ever met in the woods.

The meeting happened in this wise. I had been bothered and wearied for

half a day by a bad piece of low, marshy ground, and had at length

struck a dry, rolling oak opening where I sat down at the foot of a

small oak to rest. I had scarcely been resting ten minutes, when I

caught sight of a large, dirty-white animal, slowly working its way in

my direction through the low bushes, evidently nosing around for acorns.

I was puzzled to say what it was. It looked like a hog, but stood too

high on its legs; and how would such a beast get there anyhow? Nearer

and nearer he came, and at last walked out into an open spot less than

twenty yards distant. It was a wild hog of the ugliest and largest

description; tall as a yearling, with an unnaturally large head, and

dangerous looking tusks, that curved above his savage snout like small

horns. There was promise of magnificent power in his immense shoulders,

while flanks and hams were disproportionately light. He came out to the

open leisurely munching his acorns, or amusing himself by ploughing deep

furrows with his nose, and not until within ten yards did he appear to

note the presence of a stranger. Suddenly he raised his head and became

rigid as though frozen to stone; he was taking an observation. For a few

seconds he remained immovable, then his bristles became erect, and with

a deep guttural, grunting noise, he commenced hitching himself along in

my direction, sidewise. My hair raised, and in an instant I was on my

feet with the cocked rifle to my shoulder--meaning to shoot before his

charge, and then make good time up the tree. But there was no need. As I

sprang to my feet he sprang for the hazel bushes, and went tearing

through them with the speed of a deer, keeping up a succession of snorts

and grunts that could be heard long after he had passed out of sight. I

am not subject to buck fever, and was disgusted to find myself so badly

"rattled" that I could scarcely handle the rifle. At first I was

provoked at myself for not getting a good ready and shooting him in the

head, as he came out of the bushes; but it was better to let him live.

He was not carnivorous, or a beast of prey, and ugly as he was,

certainly looked better alive than he would as a porcine corpse. No

doubt he relished his acorns as well as though he had been less ugly,

and he was a savage power in the forest. Bears love pork; and the fact

that the hog was picking up a comfortable living in that wilderness, is

presumptive evidence that he was a match for the largest bear, or he

would have been eaten long before.

[Sidenote: _Incidents_]

Another little incident, in which Bruin played a leading part, rises

vividly to memory. It was hardly an adventure; only the meeting of man

and bear, and they parted on good terms, with no hardness on either

side.

The meeting occurred, as usually was the case with large game, on dry,

oak lands, where the undergrowth was hazel, sassafras, and wild

grapevine. As before, I had paused for a rest, when I began to catch

glimpses of a very black animal working its way among the hazel bushes,

under the scattering oaks, and toward me. With no definite intention of

shooting, but just to see how easy it might be to kill him, I got a good

ready, and waited. Slowly and lazily he nuzzled his way among the trees,

sitting up occasionally to crunch acorns, until he was within

twenty-five yards of me, with the bright bead neatly showing at the butt

of his ear, and he sitting on his haunches, calmly chewing his acorns,

oblivious of danger. He was the shortest-legged, blackest, and glossiest

bear I had ever seen; and such a fair shot. But I could not use either

skin or meat, and he was a splendid picture just as he sat. Shot down

and left to taint the blessed air, he would not look as wholesome, let

alone that it would be unwarrantable murder. And so, when he came nosing

under the very tree where I was sitting, I suddenly jumped up, threw my

hat at him, and gave a Comanche yell. He tumbled over in a limp heap,

grunting and whining for very terror, gathered himself up, got up

headway, and disappeared with wonderful speed--considering the length of

his legs.

On another occasion--and this was in heavy timber--I was resting on a

log, partially concealed by spice bushes, when I noticed a large flock

of turkeys coming in my direction. As they rapidly advanced with their

quick, gliding walk, the flock grew to a drove, the drove became a

swarm--an army. To right and on the left, as far as I could see in

front, a legion of turkeys were marching, steadily marching to the

eastward. Among them were some of the grandest gobblers I had ever seen,

and one magnificent fellow came straight toward me. Never before or

since have I seen such a splendid wild bird. His thick, glossy black

beard nearly reached the ground, his bronze uniform was of the richest,

and he was decidedly the largest I have ever seen. When within fifty

feet of the spot where I was nearly hidden, his wary eye caught

something suspicious; and he raised his superb head for an instant in an

attitude of motionless attention. Then, with lowered head and drooping

tail, he turned right about, gave the note of alarm, put the trunk of a

large tree quickly between himself and the enemy, and went away like the

wind. With the speed of thought the warning note was sounded along the

whole line, and in a moment the woods seemed alive with turkeys, running

for dear life. In less time than it takes to tell it, that gallinaceous

army had passed out of sight, forever. And the like of it will never

again be possible on this continent.

[Sidenote: _Turkeys and Deer_]

And again, on the morning of the sixth day out, I blundered on to such

an aggregation of deer as a man sees but once in a lifetime. I had

camped over night on low land, among heavy timber, but soon after

striking camp, came to a place where the timber was scattering, and the

land had a gentle rise to the westward. Scarcely had I left the low land

behind, when a few deer got out of their beds and commenced lazily

bounding away. They were soon joined by others; on the right flank, on

the left, and ahead, they continued to rise and canter off leisurely,

stopping at a distance of one or two hundred yards to look back. It

struck me finally that I had started something rather unusual, and I

began counting the deer in sight. It was useless to attempt it; their

white flags were flying in front and on both flanks, as far as one

could see, and new ones seemed constantly joining the procession. Among

them were several very large bucks with superb antlers, and these seemed

very little afraid of the small, quiet biped in leaf-colored rig. They

often paused to gaze back with bold, fearless front, as though inclined

to call a halt and face the music; but when within a hundred yards,

would turn and canter leisurely away. As the herd neared the summit of

the low-lying ridge, I tried to make a reasonable guess at their

numbers, by counting a part and estimating the rest, but could come to

no satisfactory conclusion. As they passed the summit and loped down the

gentle decline toward heavy timber, they began to scatter, and soon not

a flag was in sight. It was a magnificent cervine army with white

banners, and I shall never look upon its like again. The largest drove

of deer I have seen in twenty years consisted of seven only.

And with much of interest, much of tramping, and not a little vexatious

delay, I came at length to a stream that I knew must be the south branch

of the Muskegon. The main river could scarcely be more than ten miles to

the westward, and might be easily reached in one day.

It was time. The meal and pork were nearly gone, sugar and tea were at

low ebb, and I was tired of venison; tired anyhow; ready for human

speech and human companionship.

It was in the afternoon of the ninth day that I crossed the South

Muskegon and laid a course west by north. The travelling was not bad;

and in less than an hour I ran on to the ruins of a camp that I knew to

be the work of Indians. It had evidently been a permanent winter camp,

and was almost certainly the Indian camp spoken of by Bill Hance.

Pausing a short time to look over the ruins, with the lonely feeling

always induced by a decayed, rotting camp, I struck due west and made

several miles before sundown.

I camped on a little rill, near a huge dry stub that would peel, made

the last of the meal into a johnny-cake, broiled the last slice of pork,

and lay down with the notion that a ten days' tramp, where it took an

average of fifteen miles to make six, ought to end on the morrow. At

sunrise I was again on foot, and after three hours of steady tramping,

saw a smoky opening ahead. In five minutes I was standing on the left

bank of the Muskegon.

And the Joe Davis camp--was it up stream or down? I decided on the

latter, and started slowly down stream, keeping an eye out for signs. In

less than an hour I struck a dim log road which led to the river, and

there was a "landing," with the usual debris of skids, loose bark,

chocks, and some pieces of broken boards. It did not take long to

construct an efficient log raft from the dry skids, and as I drifted

placidly down the deep, wild river, munching the last bit of

johnny-cake, I inwardly swore that my next wilderness cruise should be

by water.

It was in late afternoon that I heard--blessed sound--the eager clank,

clank, clank of the old-fashioned sawmill. It grew nearer and more

distinct; presently I could distinguish the rumble of machinery as the

carriage gigged back; then the raft rounded a gentle bend, and a mill,

with its long, log boarding-house, came full in sight.

As the raft swung into the landing the mill became silent; a

brown-bearded, red-shirted fellow came down to welcome me, a pair of

strong hands grasped both my own, and the voice of Joe Davis said

earnestly, "Why, George! I never was so d--d glad to see a man in my

life!"

The ten days' tramp was ended. It had been wearisome to a degree, but

interesting and instructive. I had seen more game birds and animals in

the time than I ever saw before or since in a whole season; and, though

I came out with clothes pretty well worn and torn off my back and legs,

I was a little disposed to plume myself on the achievement. Even at this

day I am a little proud of the fact that, with so many temptations to

slaughter, I only fired three shots on the route. Nothing but the

exceptionally fine, dry weather rendered such a trip possible in a

wilderness so cut up with swamps, lakes, marshes and streams. A week of

steady rain or a premature snow storm--either likely enough at that

season--would have been most disastrous; while a forest fire like that

of '56, and later ones, would simply have proved fatal.

Reader, if ever you are tempted to make a similar thoughtless, reckless

trip--don't do it.

Chapter IX--Canoeing

THE LIGHT CANOE AND DOUBLE BLADE--VARIOUS CANOES FOR VARIOUS

CANOEISTS--REASONS FOR PREFERRING THE CLINKER-BUILT CEDAR

The canoe is coming to the front, and canoeing is gaining rapidly in

popular favor, in spite of the disparaging remark that "a canoe is a

poor man's yacht." The canoe editor of _Forest and Stream_ pertinently

says, "we may as properly call a bicycle 'the poor man's express

train.'" But, suppose it is the poor man's yacht? Are we to be debarred

from aquatic sports because we are not rich? And are we such weak

flunkies as to be ashamed of poverty? Or to attempt shams and

subterfuges to hide it? For myself, I freely accept the imputation. In

common with nine-tenths of my fellow citizens I am poor--and the canoe

is my yacht, as it would be were I a millionaire. We are a nation of

many millions, and comparatively few of us are rich enough to support a

yacht, let alone the fact that not one man in fifty lives near enough to

yachting waters to make such an acquisition desirable--or feasible,

even. It is different with the canoe. A man like myself may live in the

backwoods, a hundred miles from a decent sized inland lake, and much

further from the sea coast, and yet be an enthusiastic canoeist. For

instance.

Last July I made my preparations for a canoe cruise, and spun out with

as little delay as possible. I had pitched on the Adirondacks as

cruising ground, and had more than 250 miles of railroads and buckboards

to take, before launching the canoe on Moose River. She was carried

thirteen miles over the Brown's Tract road on the head of her skipper,

cruised from the western side of the Wilderness to the Lower St. Regis

on the east side, cruised back again by a somewhat different route, was

taken home to Pennsylvania on the cars, 250 miles, sent back to her

builder, St. Lawrence County, N.Y., over 300 miles, thence by rail to

New York City, where, the last I heard of her, she was on exhibition at

the _Forest and Stream_ office. She took her chances in the baggage car,

with no special care, and is today, so far as I know, staunch and tight,

with not a check in her frail siding.

Such cruising can only be made in a very light canoe, and with a very

light outfit. It was sometimes necessary to make several carries in one

day, aggregating as much as ten miles, besides from fifteen to twenty

miles under paddle. No heavy, decked, paddling or sailing canoe would

have been available for such a trip with a man of ordinary muscle.

The difference between a lone, independent cruise through an almost

unbroken wilderness, and cruising along civilized routes, where the

canoeist can interview farm houses and village groceries for supplies,

getting gratuitous stonings from the small boy, and much reviling from

ye ancient mariner of the towpath--I say, the difference is just

immense. Whence it comes that I always prefer a very light, open canoe;

one that I can carry almost as easily as my hat, and yet that will float

me easily, buoyantly, and safely. And such a canoe was my last cruiser.

She only weighed ten and one-half pounds when first launched, and after

an all-summer rattling by land and water had only gained half a pound. I

do not therefore advise any one to buy a ten and a half pound canoe;

although she would prove competent for a skillful light-weight. She was

built to order, as a test of lightness and was the third experiment in

that line.

I have nothing to say against the really fine canoes that are in highest

favor today. Were I fond of sailing, and satisfied to cruise on routes

where clearings are more plentiful than carries, I dare say I should run

a Shadow, or Stella Maris, at a cost of considerably more than

$100--though I should hardly call it a "poor man's yacht."

Much is being said and written at the present day as to the "perfect

canoe." One writer decides in favor of a Pearl 15x31-1/2 inches. In the

same column another says, "the perfect canoe does not exist." I should

rather say there are several types of the modern canoe, each nearly

perfect in its way and for the use to which it is best adapted. The

perfect paddling canoe is by no means perfect under canvas, and vice

versa. The best cruiser is not a perfect racer, while neither of them is

at all perfect as a paddling cruiser where much carrying is to be done.

And the most perfect canoe for fishing and gunning around shallow,

marshy waters, would be a very imperfect canoe for a rough and ready

cruise of one hundred miles through a strange wilderness, where a day's

cruise will sometimes include a dozen miles of carrying.

[Sidenote: _A Light Canoe_]

Believing, as I do, that the light, single canoe with double-bladed

paddle is bound to soon become a leading--if not the leading--feature in

summer recreation, and having been a light canoeist for nearly fifty

years, during the last twenty of which I experimented much with the view

of reducing weight, perhaps I can give some hints that may help a

younger man in the selection of a canoe which shall be safe, pleasant to

ride, and not burdensome to carry.

Let me promise that, up to four years ago, I was never able to get a

canoe that entirely satisfied me as to weight and model. I bought the

smallest birches I could find; procured a tiny Chippewa dugout from

North Michigan, and once owned a kayak. They were all too heavy, and

they were cranky to a degree.

About twenty years ago I commenced making my own canoes. The

construction was of the simplest; a 22-inch pine board for the bottom,

planed to 3/4 of an inch thickness; two wide 1/2-inch boards for the

sides, and two light oak stems; five pieces of wood in all. I found that

the bend of the siding gave too much shear; for instance, if the siding

was 12 inches wide, she would have a rise of 12 inches at stems and less

than 5 inches at center. But the flat bottom made her very stiff, and

for river work she was better than anything I had yet tried. She was too

heavy, however, always weighing from 45 to 50 pounds, and awkward to

carry.

My last canoe of this style went down the Susquehanna with an ice jam

in the spring of '79, and in the meantime canoeing began to loom up. The

best paper in the country which makes out-door sport a specialty,

devoted liberal space to canoeing, and skilled boatbuilders were

advertising canoes of various models and widely different material. I

commenced interviewing the builders by letter, and studying catalogues

carefully. There was a wide margin of choice. You could have lapstreak,

smooth skin, paper, veneer, or canvas. What I wanted was light weight,

and good model. I liked the Peterboro canoes; they were decidedly

canoey. Also, the veneered Racines; but neither of them talked of a

20-pound canoe. The "Osgood folding canvas" did. But I had some

knowledge of canvas boats. I knew they could make her down to 20 pounds.

How much would she weigh after being in the water a week, and how would

she behave when swamped in the middle of a lake, were questions to be

asked, for I always get swamped. One builder of cedar canoes thought he

could make me the boat I wanted, inside of 20 pounds, clinker-built, and

at my own risk, as he hardly believed in so light a boat. I sent him the

order, and he turned out what is pretty well known in Brown's Tract as

the "Nessmuk canoe." She weighed just 17 pounds 13-3/4 ounces, and was

thought to be the lightest working canoe in existence. Her builder gave

me some advice about stiffening her with braces, etc., if I found her

too frail, "and he never expected another like her."

"He builded better than he knew." She needed no bracing; and she was,

and is, a staunch, seaworthy little model. I fell in love with her from

the start. I had at last found the canoe that I could ride in rough

water, sleep in afloat, and carry with ease for miles. I paddled her

early and late, mainly on the Fulton Chain; but I also cruised her on

Raquette Lake, Eagle, Utowana, Blue Mountain, and Forked Lakes. I

paddled her until there were black and blue streaks along the muscles

from wrist to elbow. Thank Heaven, I had found something that made me a

boy again. Her log shows a cruise for 1880 of over 550 miles.

As regards her capacity (she is now on Third Lake, Brown's Tract), James

P. Fifield, a muscular young Forge House guide of 6 feet 2 inches and

185 pounds weight, took her through the Fulton Chain to Raquette Lake

last summer; and, happening on his camp, Seventh Lake, last July, I

asked him how she performed under his weight. He said, "I never made the

trip to Raquette so lightly and easily in my life." And as to the

opinion of her builder, he wrote me, under date of Nov. 18, '83: "I

thought when I built the Nessmuk, no one else would ever want one. But I

now build about a dozen of them a year. Great big men, ladies, and two,

aye, three schoolboys ride in them. It is wonderful how few pounds of

cedar, rightly modeled and properly put together, it takes to float a

man." Just so, Mr. Builder. That's what I said when I ordered her. But

few seemed to see it then.

[Sidenote: _Experiments_]

The Nessmuk was by no means the ultimatum of lightness, and I ordered

another six inches longer, two inches wider, and to weigh about 15

pounds. When she came to hand she was a beauty, finished in oil and

shellac. But she weighed 16 pounds, and would not only carry me and my

duffle, but I could easily carry a passenger of my weight. I cruised her

in the summer of '81 over the Fulton Chain, Raquette Lake, Forked Lake,

down the Raquette River, and on Long Lake. But her log only showed a

record of 206 miles. The cruise that had been mapped for 600 miles was

cut short by sickness, and I went into quarantine at the hostelry of

Mitchell Sabattis. Slowly and feebly I crept back to the Fulton Chain,

hung up at the Forge House, and the cruise of the Susan Nipper was

ended. Later in the season, I sent for her, and she was forwarded by

express, coming out over the fearful Brown's Tract road to Boonville

(25-1/2 miles) by buckboard. From Boonville home, she took her chances

in the baggage car without protection, and reached her destination

without a check or scratch. She hangs in her slings under the porch, a

thing of beauty--and, like many beauties, a trifle frail--but staunch as

the day I took her. Her proper lading is about 200 pounds. She can float

300 pounds.

Of my last and lightest venture, the Sairy Gamp, little more need be

said. I will only add that a Mr. Dutton, of Philadelphia, got into her

at the Forge House, and paddled her like an old canoeist, though it was

his first experience with the double blade. He gave his age as

sixty-four years, and weight, 140 pounds. Billy Cornell, a bright young

guide, cruised her on Raquette Lake quite as well as her owner could do

it, and I thought she trimmed better with him. He paddled at 141-1/2

pounds, which is just about her right lading. And she was only an

experiment, anyhow. I wanted to find out how light a canoe it took to

drown her skipper, and I do not yet know. I never shall. But, most of

all, I desired to settle the question--approximately at least, of

weight, as regards canoe and canoeist.

Many years ago, I became convinced that we were all, as canoeists,

carrying and paddling just twice as much wood as was at all needful, and

something more than a year since, I advanced the opinion in _Forest and

Stream_, that ten pounds of well made cedar ought to carry one hundred

pounds of man. The past season has more than proved it; but, as I may be

a little exceptional, I leave myself out of the question, and have

ordered my next canoe on lines and dimensions that, in my judgment, will

be found nearly perfect for the average canoeist of 150 to 160 pounds.

She will be much stronger than either of my other canoes, because few

men would like a canoe so frail and limber that she can be sprung inward

by hand pressure on the gunwales, as easily as a hat-box. And many men

are clumsy or careless with a boat, while others are lubberly by nature.

Her dimensions are: Length, 10-1/2 feet; beam, 26 inches; rise at

center, 9 inches; at seams, 15 inches; oval red elm ribs, 1 inch apart;

an inch home tumble; stems, plumb and sharp; oak keel and keelson;

clinker-built, of white cedar.

Such a canoe will weigh about 22 pounds, and will do just as well for

the man of 140 or 170 pounds, while even a light weight of 110 pounds

ought to take her over a portage with a light, elastic carrying frame,

without distress. She will trim best, however, at about 160 pounds. For

a welter, say of some 200 pounds, add 6 inches to her length, 2 inches

to her beam, and 1 inch rise at center. The light weight canoeist will

find that either of these two canoes will prove satisfactory, that is 10

feet in length, weight 16 pounds, or 10-1/2 feet length, weight 18

pounds. Either is capable of 160 pounds, and they are very steady and

buoyant, as I happen to know. I dare say any first class manufacturers

will build canoes of these dimensions.

Provide your canoe with a flooring of oil-cloth 3-1/2 feet long by 15

inches wide; punch holes in it and tie it neatly to the ribbing, just

where it will best protect the bottom from wear and danger. Use only a

cushion for a seat, and do not buy a fancy one with permanent stuffing,

but get sixpence worth of good, unbleached cotton cloth, and have it

sewed into bag shape. Stuff the bag with fine browse, dry grass or

leaves, settle it well together, and fasten the open end by turning it

flatly back and using two or three pins. You can empty it if you like

when going over a carry, and it makes a good pillow at night.

[Sidenote: _The Proper Craft_]

Select a canoe that fits you, just as you would a coat or hat. A

16-pound canoe may fit me exactly, but would be a bad misfit for a man

of 180 pounds. And don't neglect the auxiliary paddle, or "pudding

stick," as my friends call it. The notion may be new to most canoeists,

but will be found exceedingly handy and useful. It is simply a little

one-handed paddle weighing 5 to 7 ounces, 20 to 22 inches long, with a

blade 3-1/2 inches wide. Work it out of half-inch cherry or maple, and

fine the blade down thin. Tie it to a rib with a slip-knot, having the

handle in easy reach, and when you come to a narrow, tortuous channel,

where shrubs and weeds crowd you on both sides, take the double-blade

inboard, use the pudding stick, and you can go almost anywhere that a

muskrat can.

In fishing for trout or floating deer, remember you are dealing with the

wary, and that the broad blades are very showy in motion. Therefore, on

approaching a spring-hole, lay the double-blade on the lily-pads where

you can pick it up when wanted, and handle your canoe with the

auxiliary. On hooking a large fish, handle the rod with one hand and

with the other lay the canoe out into deep water, away from all

entangling alliances. You may be surprised to find how easily, with a

little practice, you can make a two-pound trout or bass tow the canoe

the way you want it to go.

In floating for deer, use the double-blade only in making the passage to

the ground; then take it apart and lay it inboard, using only the little

paddle to float with, tying it to a rib with a yard and a half of linen

line. On approaching a deer near enough to shoot, let go the paddle,

leaving it to drift alongside while you attend to venison.

Beneath a hemlock grim and dark,

Where shrub and vine are intertwining,

Our shanty stands, well roofed with bark,

On which the cheerful blaze is shining.

The smoke ascends in spiral wreath,

With upward curve the sparks are trending;

The coffee kettle sings beneath

Where sparks and smoke with leaves are blending.

And on the stream a light canoe

Floats like a freshly fallen feather,

A fairy thing, that will not do

For broader seas and stormy weather.

Her sides no thicker than the shell

Of Ole Bull's Cremona fiddle,

The man who rides her will do well

To part his scalp-lock in the middle.

--"Forest Runes"--Nessmuk.

Chapter X

ODDS AND ENDS--WHERE TO GO FOR AN OUTING--WHY A

CLINKER?--BOUGHS AND BROWSE

The oft-recurring question as to where to go for the outing, can hardly

be answered at all satisfactorily. In a general way, any place may, and

ought to be, satisfactory, where there are fresh green woods, pleasant

scenery, and fish and game plenty enough to supply the camp abundantly,

with boating facilities and pure water.

"It's more in the man than it is in the land," and there are thousands

of such places on the waters of the Susquehanna, the Delaware, the

rivers and lakes of Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Canada.

Among the lakes of Central New York one may easily select a camping

ground, healthy, pleasant, easily reached, and with the advantage of

cheapness. A little too much civilization, perhaps; but the farmers are

friendly, and kindly disposed to all summer outers who behave like

gentlemen.

For fine forest scenery and unequaled canoeing facilities, it must be

admitted that the Adirondack region stands at the head. There is also

fine fishing and good hunting, for those who know the right places to go

for deer and trout. But it is a tedious, expensive job getting into the

heart of the Wilderness, and it is the most costly woodland resort I

know of when you are there. You can keep expenses down (and also have a

much better sport) by avoiding the hotels and going into camp at once,

and staying there. The best way is for two men to hire a guide, live in

camp altogether, and divide the expense.

All along the Allegheny range, from Maine to Michigan, and from

Pennsylvania to the Provinces, numberless resorts exist as pleasant, as

healthy, as prolific of sport, as the famed Adirondacks, and at half the

cost. But, for an all-summer canoe cruise, with more than 600 accessible

lakes and ponds, the Northern Wilderness stands alone. And, as a wealthy

cockney once remarked to me in Brown's Tract, "It's no place for a poor

man."

And now I will give my reasons for preferring the clinker-built cedar

boat, or canoe, to any other. First, as to material. Cedar is stronger,

more elastic, more enduring, and shrinks less than pine or any other

light wood used as boat siding. As one of the best builders in the

country says, "It has been thoroughly demonstrated that a cedar canoe

will stand more hard knocks than an oak one; for where it only receives

bruises, the oak streaks will split." And he might add, the pine will

break. But I suppose it is settled beyond dispute that white cedar

stands at the head for boat streaks. I prefer it, then, because it is

the best. And I prefer the clinker, because it is the strongest,

simplest, most enduring, and most easily repaired in case of accident.

To prove the strength theory, take a cedar (or pine) strip eight feet

long and six inches wide. Bend it to a certain point by an equal strain

on each end, and carefully note the result. Next strip it lengthwise

with the rip saw, lap the two halves an inch, and nail the lap as in

boat building. Test it again, and you will find it has gained in

strength about twenty per cent. That is the clinker of it.

Now work the laps down until the strip is of uniform thickness its

entire length, and test it once more; you will find it much weaker than

on first trial. That is the smooth skin, sometimes called lapstreak.

They, the clinker canoes, are easily tightened when they spring a leak

through being rattled over stones in rapids. It is only to hunt a smooth

pebble for a clinch head, and settle the nails that have started with

the hatchet, putting in a few new ones if needed. And they are put

together, at least by the best builders, without any cement or white

lead, naked wood to wood, and depending only on close work for

water-proofing. And each pair of strips is cut to fit and lie in its

proper place without strain, no two pairs being alike, but each pair,

from garboards to upper streak, having easy, natural form for its

destined position.

[Sidenote: _Various Craft_]

The veneered canoes are very fine, for deep water; but a few cuts on

sharp stones will be found ruinous; and if exposed much to weather they

are liable to warp. The builders understand this, and plainly say that

they prefer not to build fine boats for those who will neglect the

proper care of them.

The paper boat, also, will not stand much cutting on sharp stones, and

it is not buoyant when swamped, unless fitted with water-tight

compartments, which I abhor.

The canvas is rather a logy, limp sort of craft, to my thinking, and

liable to drown her crew if swamped.

But each and all have their admirers, and purchasers as well, while each

is good in its way, and I only mention a few reasons for my preference

of the cedar.

When running an ugly rapid or crossing a stormy lake, I like to feel

that I have enough light, seasoned wood under me to keep my mouth and

nose above water all day, besides saving the rifle and knapsack, which,

when running into danger, I always tie to the ribbing with strong linen

line, as I do the paddle also, giving it about line enough to just allow

free play.

[Sidenote: _Overboard_]

I am not--to use a little modern slang--going to "give myself away" on

canoeing, or talk of startling adventure. But, for the possible

advantage of some future canoeist, I will briefly relate what happened

to me on a certain windy morning one summer. It was on one of the larger

lakes--no matter which--between Paul Smith's and the Fulton Chain. I had

camped over night in a spot that did not suit me in the least, but it

seemed the best I could do then and there. The night was rough, and the

early morning threatening. However, I managed a cup of coffee, "tied

in," and made a slippery carry of two miles a little after sunrise.

Arrived on the shore of the lake, things did not look promising. The

whirling, twirling clouds were black and dangerous looking, the crisp,

dark waves were crested with spume, and I had a notion of just making a

comfortable camp and waiting for better weather. But the commissary

department was reduced to six Boston crackers, with a single slice of

pork, and it was twelve miles of wilderness to the nearest point of

supplies, four miles of it carries, included. Such weather might last a

week, and I decided to go. For half an hour I sat on the beach, taking

weather notes. The wind was northeast; my course was due west, giving

me four points free. Taking five feet of strong line, I tied one end

under a rib next the keelson, and the other around the paddle. Stripping

to shirt and drawers, I stowed everything in the knapsack, and tied that

safely in the fore peak. Then I swung out. Before I was a half mile out,

I fervently wished myself back. But it was too late. How that little,

corky, light canoe did bound and snap, with a constant tendency to come

up in the wind's eye, that kept me on the qui vive every instant. She

shipped no water; she was too buoyant for that. But she was all the time

in danger of pitching her crew overboard. It soon came to a crisis.

About the middle of the lake, on the north side, there is a sharp, low

gulch that runs away back through the hills, looking like a level cut

through a railroad embankment. And down this gulch came a fierce thunder

gust that was like a small cyclone. It knocked down trees, swept over

the lake, and--caught the little canoe on the crest of a wave, right

under the garboard streak. I went overboard like a shot; but I kept my

grip on the paddle. That grip was worth a thousand dollars to the

"Travelers' Accidental"; and another thousand to the "Equitable

Company," because the paddle, with its line, enabled me to keep the

canoe in hand, and prevent her from going away to leeward like a dry

leaf. When I once got my nose above water, and my hand on her after

stem, I knew I had the whole business under control. Pressing the stem

down, I took a look inboard. The little jilt! She had not shipped a

quart of water. And there was the knapsack, the rod, the little

auxiliary paddle, all just as I had tied them in; only the crew and the

double-blade had gone overboard. As I am elderly and out of practice in

the swimming line, and it was nearly half a mile to a lee shore, and, as

I was out of breath and water-logged, it is quite possible that a little

forethought and four cents' worth of fishline saved--the insurance

companies two thousand dollars.

How I slowly kicked that canoe ashore; how the sun came out bright and

hot; how, instead of making the remaining eleven miles, I raised a

conflagration and a comfortable camp, dried out, and had a pleasant

night of it; all this is neither here nor there. The point I wish to

make is, keep your duffle safe to float, and your paddle and canoe

sufficiently in hand to always hold your breathing works above water

level. So shall your children look confidently for your safe return,

while the "Accidentals" arise and call you a good investment.

There is only one objection to the clinker-built canoe that occurs to me

as at all plausible. This is, that the ridge-like projections of her

clinker laps offer resistance to the water, and retard her speed.

Theoretically, this is correct. Practically, it is not proven. Her

streaks are so nearly on her water line that the resistance, if any,

must be infinitesimal. It is possible, however, that this element might

lessen her speed one or two minutes in a mile race. I am not racing, but

taking leisurely recreation. I can wait two or three minutes as well as

not. Three or four knots an hour will take me through to the last carry

quite as soon as I care to make the landing.

A few words of explanation and advice may not be out of place. I have

used the words "boughs" and "browse" quite frequently. I am sorry they

are not more in use. The first settlers in the unbroken forest knew how

to diagnose a tree. They came to the "Holland Purchase" from the Eastern

States, with their families, in a covered wagon, drawn by a yoke of

oxen, and the favorite cow patiently leading behind. They could not

start until the ground was settled, some time in May, and nothing could

be done in late summer, save to erect a log cabin, and clear a few acres

for the next season. To this end the oxen were indispensable, and a cow

was of first necessity, where there were children. And cows and oxen

must have hay. But there was not a ton of hay in the country. A few

hundred pounds of coarse wild grass was gleaned from the margins of

streams and small marshes; but the main reliance was "browse." Through

the warm months the cattle could take care of themselves; but, when

winter settled down in earnest, a large part of the settler's work

consisted in providing browse for his cattle. First and best was the

basswood (linden); then came maple, beech, birch and hemlock. Some of

the trees would be nearly three feet in diameter, and, when felled, much

of the browse would be twenty feet above the reach of cattle, on the

ends of huge limbs. Then the boughs were lopped off, and the cattle

could get at the browse. The settlers divided the tree into log, limbs,

boughs, and browse. Anything small enough for a cow or deer to

masticate was browse. And that is just what you want for a camp in the

forest. Not twigs, that may come from a thorn, or boughs, that may be as

thick as your wrist, but browse, which may be used for a mattress, the

healthiest in the world.

And now for a little useless advice. In going into the woods, don't take

a medicine chest or a set of surgical instruments with you. A bit of

sticking salve, a wooden vial of anti-pain tablets and another of

rhubarb regulars, your fly medicine, and a pair of tweezers, will be

enough. Of course you have needles and thread.

If you go before the open season for shooting, take no gun. It will

simply be a useless incumbrance and a nuisance.

If you go to hunt, take a solemn oath never to point the shooting end of

your gun toward yourself or any other human being.

In still-hunting, swear yourself black in the face never to shoot at a

dim, moving object in the woods for a deer, unless you have seen that it

is a deer. In these days there are quite as many hunters as deer in the

woods; and it is a heavy, wearisome job to pack a dead or wounded man

ten or twelve miles out to a clearing, let alone that it spoils all the

pleasure of the hunt, and is apt to raise hard feelings among his

relations.

In a word, act coolly and rationally. So shall your outing be a delight

in conception and the fulfillment thereof; while the memory of it shall

come back to you in pleasant dreams, when legs and shoulders are too

stiff and old for knapsack and rifle.

That is me. That is why I sit here tonight--with the north wind and

sleet rattling the one window of my little den-writing what I hope

younger and stronger men will like to take into the woods with them, and

read. Not that I am so very old. The youngsters are still not anxious to

buck against the muzzle-loader in off-hand shooting. But, in common with

a thousand other old graybeards, I feel that the fire, the fervor, the

steel, that once carried me over the trail from dawn until dark, is

dulled and deadened within me.

We had our day of youth and May;

We may have grown a trifle sober;

But life may reach a wintry way,

And we are only in October.

[Sidenote: _Final Advice_]

Wherefore, let us be thankful that there are still thousands of cool,

green nooks beside crystal springs, where the weary soul may hide for a

time, away from debts, duns and deviltries, and a while commune with

nature in her undress.

And with kindness to all true woodsmen; and with malice toward none,

save the trout-hog, the netter, the cruster, and skin-butcher, let us

PREPARE TO TURN IN.

Index

Adirondacks 28, 95

angle-worms 37, 48

axe 6-9

Bait, fish-belly 47

-fishing 37

grubs 37

pork frog 41, 43

worms 48

barbs on hooks 40

baskets, pack 6

bear 83

beans 67-69

beds 51

black bass bait 43, 47

black flies 15

blanket-bag 4

boats 96 ff.

boots 3, 75

bread 63, 64

brook trout 36

broom for camp 52

browse 99

Camp 18 ff.

brush shanty 21

coal cabin 25

cookery 50, 62 ff.

fires 28-34, 49, 57

furniture 51, 52

Indian 18-21

shanty tent 21-24

shed roof 26

stoves 28, 57

tents 18, 21, 27

canoes 87-94, 96-99

"Nessmuk" 90

paddles 93

"Sairy Gamp" 91

seats 93

"Susan Nipper" 91

weight 92

canvas

boats 97

water-proofing 22

cleanliness in camp 53

clinker-built cedar boats 96

clothing 3, 75

coal cabin 25

coffee 64-66

condiments 75

cooking 49 ff., 62 ff.

fires 49

-range 56

utensils 9, 10

_See also_ recipes

Deer 84

ditty-bag 11, 12

duffle 3, 4

Fire

woods 57

_See also_ camp, cooking

fish, cooking of 73

large 44, 45, 47, 48

fish-belly bait 47

fishing 35-48

bait- 37

fly- 36 ff.

flapjacks 63

flies 36 ff.

fly pests 15

varnish 15

foot-gear 3, 75

Forester, Frank 15, 62

forests 31, 77-86

forks 9

frog-bait 41, 43

frogging 12, 45, 46

Froissart 1

Game fish 44

gang hooks 40, 41

gnats 15

gut snells 47

Hat 4

hatchet 7-9

headlight 39, 46

hooks, barbs on 40

kinds of 40 ff.

size of 44

hunting 75, 100

Indian camp 18-21

insects 14-17

Johnnycake 63

Knapsack 6

knives 8, 9

Lake trout 43

lapstreak boats 96

lines 36

lost in woods 14

Mascalonge 42, 47

_Micropterus dolomieu_ 43

mosquitoes 15

ointment 15, 16

"mudding up" 74

Murray, "Adirondack" 15, 46

Night

fishing 39

in camp 20

Overwork 1

Pack baskets 6

paddles 93

paper boats 97

pests 14-17

pickerel 42, 45, 47

pillows 18, 20, 93

planning outings 2

pocket-axe 7, 8

poker and tongs 51

preparations 4

pudding sticks 93

"punkies" 16, 17

Recipes

baked beans 69

bread 63, 64

brown bread 69

canned goods 73, 74

club bread 64

coffee 64-66

ducks 72

fish 73

flapjacks 63

grouse 72

Johnnycake 63

"mudding up" 74

pancake 63

pigeons 71

porcupine 72

pork and beans 69

potatoes 66, 67

quail 71

rabbit 72, 73

soups 70

squirrel 71

stews 70

tea 66

vegetables 67, 68

venison 72

woodcock 72

reels 36

rifle 82

rods 10, 11

"roughing it" 13

_Salmo fontinalis_ 11, 36

shanty tent 21-24

shelter cloth 4

snells 41, 46, 47

sparks 27

Spencer, Herbert 1

spoons 9

spring-holes 38, 39

still-hunting 75, 76, 100

stoves 28, 57

swivels 47

Tents 18, 21, 27

tinware 9, 10

tongs 51

trout 35 ff.

Vacations 2

vegetables 67, 68

venison 72

Warner, Charles Dudley 11, 17, 50, 75

water-proofing canvas 22

winter camps 31 ff.

wire snells 41

wild hog 82

worms 48