The days slipped quietly by in the routine of work as of old and Scott
was surprised to find how much more he really enjoyed himself than he
had the previous month. The satisfaction of work well done more than
paid for the loss of the amusements—for every classroom failure had cut
him like a knife. His second meeting with the Students’ Work Committee
had no terrors for him now. He took to the Committee special reports
from all his instructors and they were above reproach. The chairman
smiled good-naturedly. “Did some plugging, eh? That’s the business;
you’ll find it pays better than society. Plenty of time for that later.
Keep it up and you need not come back.”
Thanksgiving was approaching rapidly, bringing to Scott the first pangs
of homesickness he had felt. Every Thanksgiving that he could remember
he had sat down to a bounteous dinner in the old home and the prospect
of celebrating the day in a boarding-house was not very bright. He had
had an invitation to go home with Swanson, but had promptly canceled it
when he realized that he was invited in the capacity of the prize pup.
He was gloomily thinking over the prospect when Greenleaf burst into the
room. He put his foot in Scott’s lap, jumped lightly to the table, and
landed in his chair on the other side with a crash. The jar shook the
entire house. Scott thought he had gone crazy, but Greenleaf beamed at
him in perfect contentment.
“What are you going to do Thanksgiving?” he asked eagerly. “Going to
gorge yourself at that millionaire’s?”
“No,” Scott laughed, “I canceled that for fear they might make me eat in
the barn with the other prize stock. I am going to gorge myself all I
can at the boarding-house, but I hardly expect to injure myself there.”
“Cancel that too. I have a scheme worth ten of that. We have Thursday
and Friday off. Saturday we have but one class, which we can cut with
impunity. Let’s you and Morgan and Ormand and me, take a hike down the
river to Wabasha. Morgan has a dog tent that will hold the four of us if
it is put up as a lean-to and we can sleep wherever night catches us, as
long as it is not in a town. We can collect all kinds of specimens for
dendrology and have a whale of a time.”
“I thought you were going to work,” Scott objected.
“So I was going to work, but didn’t you see me come in just now? I don’t
come in that way every night, do I? I just received a check from the
state for some fire-fighting that I did so long ago that I had forgotten
it, and, by jingoes, I am going to celebrate.”
“That would certainly be a great stunt,” Scott agreed, “and I don’t know
of anything I’d rather do. I am crazy to have a look at the geology of
that river bottom. Will the other fellows go?”
“Sure, I saw them both and they are in for it. They know the trees, the
insects, and the fungi, not to mention some sylviculture, and methods of
estimating. You know the rocks and geology, and I know every bird and
beast that moves in these parts. I tell you it will be great!”
“Where shall we get our meals?” Scott asked.
“I have a camp frying pan and a teakettle, and we can buy what grub we
need at the stores we pass. Maybe we shall have some game, too, Ormand
is a dandy with that little Stevens pistol, and may catch something
sitting around loose. Tomorrow we’ll get everything ready and the next
day we’ll start good and early.”
Scott’s homesickness vanished with the fancied smoke of the promised
campfires. He had never really camped and the prospect of a Thanksgiving
dinner in camp was very attractive. He hurried out to borrow a pack sack
from Manning, and eagerly put in all his spare time the next day in
minor preparations. He was tremendously excited, but did not know
exactly what to do. Greenleaf was no less excited over his unexpected
holiday, but went about the preparations of his kit with the
thoroughness of an old prospector. Ormand and Morgan came in the evening
to discuss the final plans and hold a consultation over the equipment.
They had left the purchasing of the supplies to Greenleaf. Ormand
lounged on the bed and Morgan lay comfortably back in the easy chair,
while Greenleaf, pencil in hand, read over the list of supplies. Scott
felt his helplessness on such an occasion, and sat quietly back in a
corner to listen.
“I’ve figured out the supplies for the whole trip,” Greenleaf began,
“but I thought we could get just half of it now and stock again at Red
Wing.”
“Sure,” Morgan assented. “No use in our carrying any more than we have
to. Some of it we might as well get all at once, but we can restock on
the heavy stuff.”
“Let’s hear the list,” Ormand grunted from the bed.
“Twelve pounds of flour,” Greenleaf started.
“Cut it out,” came in a chorus from the others.
“We’re not running a logging camp in the backwoods,” Morgan objected.
“We can carry bread and save piles of trouble.”
“Well, if you’re really going to camp,” Greenleaf contended, “you ought
to cook everything you need.”
“Fudge,” Ormand cried. “We are going out for pleasure, not to see how
much work we can do. That would be a freshman trick.”
Greenleaf, overruled but entirely unabashed, proceeded with the list.
“Eight pounds of bacon, two of oatmeal; two of sugar; six pints of
condensed milk; two quarts of beans.”
“Eight cans,” Morgan corrected, “but it would be great fun to have a
bean hole if you would run ahead—half a day to start the fire.”
“Right you are,” Greenleaf conceded. “I forgot that we did not have a
cook and a pack mule. Two pounds of butter, one of salt, a quarter-pound
of tea. How is that for grub? Oh, yes, twelve loaves of bread for Morgan
to tote.”
“Yes,” Morgan said, “I’d rather tote it any day than try to eat your
biscuits. Add two pounds of pancake flour and a can of syrup.”
“How about lard?” Scott ventured.
“Don’t need it when you have the bacon,” Ormand objected, “but you’d
better add two pounds of cheese and a box of matches. Yes, and you’d
better take one can of tomatoes, so we can have the can for a lantern.”
“Now for the dishes,” Greenleaf said. “One frying pan; one teakettle;
four tin cups; four spoons; two canteens.”
“One tomahawk,” Ormand added.
“Do you call that a dish?” Greenleaf jeered. “One pair of blankets
apiece will be enough for us, and Morgan’s dog tent will complete the
outfit.”
“One Stevens pistol and two boxes of cartridges,” Ormand added.
They all thought silently for about five minutes, but could think of
nothing else.
“Well,” Ormand said, rolling leisurely off the bed, “you buy the stuff,
Greenleaf, and bring it here, this is the nearest place to the carline.
We’ll be here at six tomorrow morning, divide up the packs and take the
car to the Indian Mounds. Good night.”
The two seniors gone, Greenleaf devoted a few minutes to revising the
list and picking out the things for immediate purchase. At last, after
many alterations, it seemed to suit him. With one last critical glance
at it he bounded out of his chair and started for the door.
“Come on, Scotty, bring your pack sack and we’ll get this grub. Then
we’ll go to bed and get a good sleep. If you have never been in camp you
probably will not sleep much the first night, and better get all that’s
coming to you now.”
With the aid of the list the purchases were soon made at the corner
grocery and the “grub” piled in one corner of the room. It looked to
Scott like a rather small supply for four men for four days, but he felt
that the others knew what they were about, and was satisfied to trust to
their judgment. All the other duffel was collected in a heap ready for
division in the morning. Then they went to bed.
By a quarter of six they were dressed for the hike, and the other
fellows had arrived. The packs were soon satisfactorily arranged and
they hurried to the carline. It was a long ride to the Indian Mounds but
they reached there by seven o’clock, slipped on their packs and hurried
away down the river bank in search of a suitable place to get breakfast.
They soon located a place in a small opening where an eight-inch stub
had been broken in half by its fall.
Morgan made the fire in record time. With Scott’s help he laid the two
pieces of the tree-trunk side by side with about three inches between
them. That was the self-burning fireplace. A handful of dried leaves, a
bunch of small twigs, a match, and the fire was ready for the kettle.
Scott thought it only the beginning of a fire and was busying himself
collecting a wagon-load of dried limbs for fuel when Greenleaf came up
with the kettle full of water and set it over the diminutive blaze.
“How long do you think it will take to boil there?” Scott asked
sarcastically.
“About five minutes,” Greenleaf answered cheerfully, missing the
sarcasm.
Scott saw that he was sincere, and decided to time it rather than chance
showing his ignorance by disputing it now. In the meanwhile Ormand had
unpacked the oatmeal, sugar, a can of milk, the tin cups and spoons.
“How about pancakes?” he called.
“Too late this morning,” Morgan answered, and the pancake flour was left
in the pack.
Scott was watching the fire with considerable interest. Greenleaf sat
patiently beside it, occasionally poking tiny twigs in between the logs,
but never on any account overfeeding it. In a few seconds over the
prescribed five minutes the water began to boil. Greenleaf immediately
removed it from the fire, dropped into it a small bag containing a
heaping teaspoonful of tea, and getting two of the canteens, which Scott
had looked upon as superfluous baggage, considering the number of houses
they would pass, leaned them carefully against one of the logs with
their uncorked mouths up. Five minutes later he fished out the little
bag and poured the tea into the canteens, which he corked immediately.
No sooner was the tea out of the kettle than Ormand rinsed it and poured
into it a cup of oatmeal and three cups of water which he had already
brought to a boil in the frying pan. He put the kettle back on the fire,
dropped in a pinch of salt, and proceeded to trim a good stiff, green
stick. With this he began to stir the oatmeal vigorously, at the same
time feeding the fire with the other hand.
“Anybody want any tea before he has his oatmeal?” Greenleaf asked. They
all did. The smoking tea was poured into the tin cups, a can of
condensed milk punctured in two places with a nail which Greenleaf
produced from his pocket—“I always carry a nail,” he explained, “a round
hole is so much easier to plug,”—and the tea was adjusted to every
individual taste. Ormand stopped feeding the fire long enough to manage
his tea with one hand, but never left off stirring for a second. They
all sipped their tea contentedly until Ormand announced that the oatmeal
was “done.”
It was then dealt out into the teacups, sugared and plastered with the
undiluted milk. The cooking being over Morgan piled some larger sticks
on the fire and they sat around it comfortably. Scott was very much
surprised to see how very full a cupful of oatmeal made him feel.
Breakfast over, Morgan rolled the two logs apart so that by the time the
teacups and the teakettle had been sand-scoured and rinsed out in the
little stream the fire was almost out. A pot or two of water on the
dying embers, the cups strung on the individual belts, and the party was
ready to move. The most astonishing part to Scott was the perfect
harmony of all the actions, and the promptness with which each one
performed his part when he knew that they were not acting on any
prearranged plan. He was to have a still more striking exhibition of
this freemasonry of the woods when the little camp was pitched for the
night.
Ormand took the lead and the four filed away down the river. Very little
was said. Each man was wriggling himself into harmony with his pack and
too full of the sheer joy of being once more in the open to care to
talk. The houses very quickly ceased to obtrude themselves and Scott was
surprised to see how soon they were in practically uninhabited woods.
The flat river bottom was here very narrow and the cliffs rose almost at
right angles to a height of one hundred and fifty feet. Frequent streams
crossed their path, emerging from miniature gorges in the cliffs, and
hurrying across the narrow strip of bottom land to the river. Trees
there were in plenty, many of them species which Scott did not expect to
find at all in such places.
At the end of an hour and a half of steady walking Ormand declared that
it was time for a rest, and dropping his pack at the foot of a big elm
tree, sat down beside it. All the others followed his example and they
were soon comfortably settled in a little hollow protected from the
wind.
“Great day for a hike,” Morgan exclaimed. “Just about cold enough to
make it pleasant. The buds are all well formed so that you can identify
things, and the leaves gone so that you can see something.”
“Yes,” Ormand agreed, “you can see our Thanksgiving dinner running all
around us. Did you ever see so many rabbits?”
Greenleaf produced a bunch of twigs he had collected along the way.
“Here’s where you fellows take an examination in dendrology. Of course
you know all these species from their buds, or think you do, and now
we’ll see about it. Scotty and I are not supposed to know anything yet
except the conifers, but we’ll see if you can outguess us. Here, for
instance,” he proceeded in the tone of a man with a megaphone on a sight
seeing automobile, “is a small twig on which there are five perfectly
good buds. Mr. Morgan, you will please elucidate.”
Morgan examined the twig carelessly and handed it to Ormand, who passed
it on to Scott.
“Elm,” Morgan announced confidently. The others nodded assent.
“Sure,” Greenleaf jeered, “any jay knows that. But now for this neat
little fellow.” He handed over a somewhat similar looking twig, but more
slender, and with sharper buds standing well out from the twig. Morgan
examined this one much more carefully, bit it, tasted it, bent it,
passed it on. The others repeated the performance. When it had completed
the rounds Morgan declared himself for white birch. Ormand immediately
disagreed with him, and, after considerable hesitation, declared himself
for blue beech.
“The buds are too big,” objected Morgan.
Scott was completely at sea.
“Very good, very good, gentlemen,” Greenleaf jeered, “but I broke it off
an ironwood tree.”
The twig then went the rounds once more and was readily identified by
the green on the buds.
“Humph,” Greenleaf grunted, “seems pretty easy when I have told you what
it is.”
This became the favorite amusement at every stop that was made, and all
along the line of march the identity of every tree concerning which
there was any doubt, was settled to the satisfaction of everyone. Scott
soon learned the trees well enough to take part in the discussions, and
added to the interest of the stops by quizzing the others on specimens
of rock he had collected, or explaining the physiography of the country
through which they were passing. On the present occasion the stop was of
brief duration. They planned to celebrate Thanksgiving in the usual
manner with a big dinner in the middle of the afternoon and no more
hiking that day. With this object in view they had elected to camp about
two miles below Hastings, which they reached at half past two.
Scott was anxious to see how such a tiny tent as they were packing could
possibly be made to accommodate four good-sized men. His curiosity was
still further aroused by the eagerness with which the others seemed to
be looking for a large fallen tree. A shout from Ormand brought the
party to a halt.
“Here she is. Just where we want her, too.” The “she” referred to a
large rotten log lying parallel to the river bank and some thirty feet
from it.
Ormand began singing out orders like a major general even before he had
slipped out of his pack. “Morgan, you build the fire and get the kettle
on. Greenleaf, you and Scotty put up the tent and make the beds. I’ll go
get the turkey.” And he disappeared in the bushes.
Greenleaf immediately took charge of the operation. “You unpack the
tent, Scotty, while I cut the poles.” Scott busied himself with the pack
while Greenleaf went circling through the neighboring woods eying
critically every sapling he passed. An occasional sound of chopping
announced the discovery of the sought-for pieces. In ten minutes he was
back with two pieces, each three and a half feet long and forked at one
end, a long slender pole, and two heavier poles about twelve feet long.
Scott buttoned the two halves of the dog tent together and watched
Greenleaf chopping off the brush and smoothing the ground on the south
side of the log. When this was completed to Greenleaf’s satisfaction,
and he was very particular about it, he stretched the straight edge of
the tent—what would ordinarily have been the front—tight along the log.
He then produced from his pocket three twenty-penny spikes which he
proceeded to drive through the brass eyelets into the log.
He and Scott stretched the tent out flat in a horizontal position and
pushed the two forked sticks into the ground just outside of the front
corners. On these two forked sticks the slender pole was laid and the
front corners of the tent tied to it, thus keeping the canvas taut. The
heavy poles were then pushed butt first through the forked sticks, under
the canvass, over the slender pole, over the log, and shoved firmly into
the ground behind the log. The flaps which usually form the back of the
tent were then extended to their full length and tied to the ends of the
heavy poles. In just fifteen minutes the little lean-to was completed
and as steady as could be desired.
They collected a big pile of dead leaves, which they spread evenly on
the ground under the canvas for a mattress, and spread the blankets over
them. In the meanwhile Morgan had built a fire similar to the one they
had used in the morning and had the kettle boiling merrily. He had also
collected a big pile of green wood for the night fire.
Just as they finished their work Ormand bounded into camp with two
rabbits he had shot with his twenty-two pistol. The tea was made as
before and another kettle of water put on immediately. Greenleaf was in
favor of boiling the rabbits in the teakettle, but Morgan insisted on
stewing them in the frying pan. Two cans of beans were punctured and
placed in the fire to warm. Scott spread out the other stores and in an
hour from the time they had found the log they were seated around their
Thanksgiving dinner. Some more critical guests might have found fault
with it, but for them it could not have been improved. A bag of apples
which Scott had bought on his way through Hastings nobly topped off the
feast.
The meal over they repaired to the tent to enjoy themselves. As the
evening was rather cold they heaped leaves at the end of the tent to
keep out the wind and built a good big fire in front of it. Under that
little flap of canvas it was warm as toast. In this cozy little retreat
they spent the evening telling yarns and discussing the plans for the
rest of the trip. When the last of the apples had been disposed of they
remodeled the fire for the night, and rolling in their blankets they
were soon lost to the world. In spite of all the predictions for a
sleepless night for Scott he was the first one asleep and the last one
to wake up in the morning.