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On the Trail
An Outdoor Book for Girls
By
LINA BEARD
AND
ADELIA BELLE BEARD
With Illustrations by the Authors
NEW YORK
Charles Scribner's Sons
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published June, 1915
TO ALL GIRLS
WHO LOVE THE LIFE OF THE OPEN
WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK
[Illustration: Over-night camp.
Fire notice is posted on tree.]
PRESENTATION
The joyous, exhilarating call of the wilderness and the forest camp is
surely and steadily penetrating through the barriers of brick, stone,
and concrete; through the more or less artificial life of town and city;
and the American girl is listening eagerly. It is awakening in her
longings for free, wholesome, and adventurous outdoor life, for the
innocent delights of nature-loving Thoreau and bird-loving Burroughs.
Sturdy, independent, self-reliant, she is now demanding outdoor books
that are genuine and filled with practical information; books that tell
how to do worth-while things, that teach real woodcraft and are not
adapted to the girl supposed to be afraid of a caterpillar or to shudder
at sight of a harmless snake.
In answer to the demand, "On the Trail" has been written. The authors'
deep desire is to help girls respond to this new, insistent call by
pointing out to them the open trail. It is their hope and wish that
their girl readers may seek the charm of the wild and may find the same
happiness in the life of the open that the American boy has enjoyed
since the first settler built his little cabin on the shores of the New
World. To forward this object, the why and how, the where and when of
things of camp and trail have been embodied in this book.
Thanks are due to Edward Cave, president and editor of _Recreation_, for
kindly allowing the use of some of his wild-life photographs.
LINA BEARD,
ADELIA BELLE BEARD.
FLUSHING, N. Y.,
March 16, 1915.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TRAILING 3
II. WOODCRAFT 21
III. CAMPING 44
IV. WHAT TO WEAR ON THE TRAIL 84
V. OUTDOOR HANDICRAFT 106
VI. MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE OUTDOOR FOLK 119
VII. WILD FOOD ON THE TRAIL 138
VIII. LITTLE FOES OF THE TRAILER 165
IX. ON THE TRAIL WITH YOUR CAMERA 187
X. ON AND IN THE WATER 205
XI. USEFUL KNOTS AND HOW TO TIE THEM 233
XII. ACCIDENTS 244
XIII. CAMP FUN AND FROLICS 255
XIV. HAPPY AND SANE SUNDAY IN CAMP 269
ILLUSTRATIONS
Over-night camp _Frontispiece_
PAGE
One can generally pass around obstructions like this on the trail 5
Difficulties of the Adirondack trail 9
Blazing the trail by bending down and breaking branches 11
Returning to camp by the blazed trail 13
Footprints of animals 17
Footprints of animals 19
Ink impressions of leaves 23
Ink impressions of leaves 24
Ink impressions of leaves 25
Pitch-pine and cone 26
Sycamore leaf and fruit of sycamore 26
How to use the axe 29
The compass and the North Star 37
A permanent camp 49
Outdoor shelters 51
Dining-tent, handy racks, and log bedstead 53
A forest camp by the water 55
In camp 57
The bough-bed, the cook-fire, and the wall-tent 59
Soft wood 63
Hard wood 65
Bringing wood for the fire 69
Camp fires and camp sanitation 81
Trailers' outfits 87
The head-net and blanket-roll 91
Some things to carry and how to carry them 101
Handicraft in the woods 107
Outdoor dressing-table, camp-cupboard, hammock-frame, seat,
and pot-hook 109
Camp-chair, biscuit-stick, and blanket camp-bed 111
The birch-bark dish that will hold fluids. Details of making 115
A bear would rather be your friend than your enemy 118
Making friends with a ruffed grouse 120
Found on the trail 122
Timber wolves 124
Baby moose 126
Stalking wild birds 128
The fish-hawk will sometimes build near the ground 131
Antelopes of the western plains 135
Good food on the trail 143
Fruits found principally in the south and the middle west 147
Fruits found principally in the north and the middle west 151
Fruits common to most of the States 155
Hickory nuts, sweet and bitter 159
Nuts with soft shells. Beechnut and chestnut 161
Poisonous and non-poisonous snakes 173
Plants poison to the touch 181
Plants poison to the taste 185
The white birch-tree makes a fine background for the beaver 191
Blacktail deer snapped with a background of snow 193
The skunk 195
The porcupine stood in the shade but the background was light 197
Photographing a woodcock from ambush 199
The country through which you pass, with a trailer in the foreground 201
Method of protecting roots to keep plants fresh while you carry
them to camp for photographing 203
A rowboat is a safer craft than a canoe 206
Keep your body steady 208
Canoeing on placid waters 210
Bring your canoe up broadside to the shore 212
How to use the paddle and a flat-bottomed rowboat 215
The raft of logs 219
Primitive weaving in raft building 221
Learn to be at home in the water 225
For dinner 229
The veteran 231
Bends in knot tying 235
Figure eight knot 237
Overhand bow-line knot 237
Underhand bow-line knot 239
Sheepshank knot 239
Parcel slip-knot 241
Cross-tie parcel knot 241
Fisherman's knot 241
The halter, slip-knot, and hitching-tie 243
The fireman's lift 245
Aids in "first aid" 247
Restoring respiration 253
When darkness closes in 259
Wood-thrush 261
Yellow-throated vireo 262
Fire without matches 264
Fire without the bow 267
ON THE TRAIL
CHAPTER I
TRAILING
=What the Outdoor World Can Do for Girls. How to Find the Trail and How
to Keep It=
There is a something in you, as in every one, every man, woman, girl,
and boy, that requires the tonic life of the wild. You may not know it,
many do not, but there is a part of your nature that only the wild can
reach, satisfy, and develop. The much-housed, overheated, overdressed,
and over-entertained life of most girls is artificial, and if one does
not turn away from and leave it for a while, one also becomes greatly
artificial and must go through life not knowing the joy, the strength,
the poise that real outdoor life can give.
What is it about a true woodsman that instantly compels our respect,
that sets him apart from the men who might be of his class in village or
town and puts him in a class by himself, though he may be exteriorly
rough and have little or no book education? The real Adirondack or the
North Woods guide, alert, clean-limbed, clear-eyed, hard-muscled,
bearing his pack-basket or duffel-bag on his back, doing all the hard
work of the camp, never loses his poise or the simple dignity which he
shares with all the things of the wild. It is bred in him, is a part of
himself and the life he leads. He is as conscious of his superior
knowledge of the woods as an astronomer is of his knowledge of the
stars, and patiently tolerates the ignorance and awkwardness of the
"tenderfoot" from the city. Only a keen sense of humor can make this
toleration possible, for I have seen things done by a city-dweller at
camp that would enrage a woodsman, unless the irresistibly funny side of
it made him laugh his inward laugh that seldom reaches the surface.
To live for a while in the wild strengthens the muscles of your mind as
well as of your body. Flabby thoughts and flabby muscles depart together
and are replaced by enthusiasm and vigor of purpose, by strength of limb
and chest and back. To _have_ seems not so desirable as to _be_. When
you have once come into sympathy with this world of the wild--which
holds our cultivated, artificial world in the hollow of its hand and
gives it life--new joy, good, wholesome, heartfelt joy, will well up
within you. New and absorbing interests will claim your attention. You
will breathe deeper, stand straighter. The small, petty things of life
will lose their seeming importance and great things will look larger and
infinitely more worth while. You will know that the woods, the fields,
the streams and great waters bear wonderful messages for you, and,
little by little, you will learn to read them.
The majority of people who visit the up-to-date hotels of the
Adirondacks, which their wily proprietors call camps, may think they see
the wild and are living in it. But for them it is only a big
picnic-ground through which they rush with unseeing eyes and whose
cloisters they invade with unfeeling hearts, seemingly for the one
purpose of building a fire, cooking their lunch, eating it, and then
hurrying back to the comforts of the hotel and the gayety of hotel life.
[Illustration: One can generally pass around obstructions like this on
the trail.]
At their careless and noisy approach the forest suddenly withdraws
itself into its deep reserve and reveals no secrets. It is as if they
entered an empty house and passed through deserted rooms, but all the
time the intruders are stealthily watched by unseen, hostile, or
frightened eyes. Every form of moving life is stilled and magically
fades into its background. The tawny rabbit halts amid the dry leaves of
a fallen tree. No one sees it. The sinuous weasel slips silently under a
rock by the side of the trail and is unnoticed. The mother grouse
crouches low amid the underbrush and her little ones follow her example,
but the careless company has no time to observe and drifts quickly by.
Only the irrepressible red squirrel might be seen, but isn't, when he
loses his balance and drops to a lower branch in his efforts to miss
nothing of the excitement of the invasion.
This is not romance, it is truth. To think sentimentally about nature,
to sit by a babbling brook and try to put your supposed feelings into
verse, will not help you to know the wild. The only way to cultivate the
sympathy and understanding which will enable you to feel its
heart-beats, is to go to it humbly, ready to see the wonders it can
show; ready to appreciate and love its beauties and ready to meet on
friendly and cordial terms the animal life whose home it is. The wild
world is, indeed, a wonderful world; how wonderful and interesting we
learn only by degrees and actual experience. It is free, but not
lawless; to enter it fully we must obey these laws which are slowly and
silently impressed upon us. It is a wholesome, life-giving, inspiring
world, and when you have learned to conform to its rules you are met on
every hand by friendly messengers to guide you and teach you the ways of
the wild: wild birds, wild fruits and plants, and gentle, furtive, wild
animals. You cannot put their messages into words, but you can feel
them; and then, suddenly, you no longer care for soft cushions and rugs,
for shaded lamps, dainty fare and finery, for paved streets and concrete
walks. You want to plant your feet upon the earth in its natural state,
however rugged or boggy it may be. You want your cushions to be of the
soft moss-beds of the piny woods, and, with the unparalleled sauce of a
healthy, hearty appetite, you want to eat your dinner out of doors,
cooked over the outdoor fire, and to drink water from a birch-bark cup,
brought cool and dripping from the bubbling spring.
You want, oh! how you want to sleep on a springy bed of balsam boughs,
wrapped in soft, warm, woollen blankets with the sweet night air of all
outdoors to breathe while you sleep. You want your flower-garden, not
with great and gorgeous masses of bloom in evident, orderly beds, but
keeping always charming surprises for unexpected times and in
unsuspected places. You want the flowers that grow without your help in
ways you have not planned; that hold the enchantment of the wilderness.
Some people are born with this love for the wild, some attain it, but in
either case the joy is there, and to find it you must seek it. Your
chosen trail may lead through the primeval forests or into the great
western deserts or plains; or it may reach only left-over bits of the
wild which can be found at no great distance from home. Even a bit of
meadow or woodland, even an uncultivated field on the hilltop, will give
you a taste of the wild; and if you strike the trail in the right spirit
you will find upon arrival that these remnants of the wild world have
much to show and to teach you. There are the sky, the clouds, the
lungfuls of pure air, the growing things which send their roots where
they will and not in a man-ordered way. There is the wild life that
obeys no man's law: the insects, the birds, and small four-footed
animals. On all sides you will find evidences of wild life if you will
look for it. Here you may make camp for a day and enjoy that day as much
as if it were one of many in a several weeks' camping trip.
However, this is not to be a book of glittering generalities but, as far
as it can be made, one of practical helpfulness in outdoor life;
therefore when you are told to strike the trail you must also be told
how to do it.
=When You Strike the Trail=
For any journey, by rail or by boat, one has a general idea of the
direction to be taken, the character of the land or water to be crossed,
and of what one will find at the end. So it should be in striking the
trail. Learn all you can about the path you are to follow. Whether it is
plain or obscure, wet or dry; where it leads; and its length, measured
more by time than by actual miles. A smooth, even trail of five miles
will not consume the time and strength that must be expended upon a
trail of half that length which leads over uneven ground, varied by bogs
and obstructed by rocks and fallen trees, or a trail that is all up-hill
climbing. If you are a novice and accustomed to walking only over smooth
and level ground, you must allow more time for covering the distance
than an experienced person would require and must count upon the
expenditure of more strength, because your feet are not trained to the
wilderness paths with their pitfalls and traps for the unwary, and every
nerve and muscle will be strained to secure a safe foothold amid the
tangled roots, on the slippery, moss-covered logs, over precipitous
rocks that lie in your path. It will take time to pick your way over
boggy places where the water oozes up through the thin, loamy soil as
through a sponge; and experience alone will teach you which hummock of
grass or moss will make a safe stepping-place and will not sink beneath
your weight and soak your feet with hidden water. Do not scorn to learn
all you can about the trail you are to take, although your questions may
call forth superior smiles. It is not that you hesitate to encounter
difficulties, but that you may prepare for them. In unknown regions take
a responsible guide with you, unless the trail is short, easily
followed, and a frequented one. Do not go alone through lonely places;
and, being on the trail, keep it and try no explorations of your own, at
least not until you are quite familiar with the country and the ways of
the wild.
[Illustration: Difficulties of the Adirondack trail.
Facsimile of drawing made by a trailer (not the author) after a day in
the wilds of an Adirondack forest. Not a good drawing, perhaps, but a
good illustration.]
=Blazing the Trail=
A woodsman usually blazes his trail by chipping with his axe the trees
he passes, leaving white scars on their trunks, and to follow such a
trail you stand at your first tree until you see the blaze on the next,
then go to that and look for the one farther on; going in this way from
tree to tree you keep the trail though it may, underfoot, be overgrown
and indistinguishable.
If you must make a trail of your own, blaze it as you go by bending down
and breaking branches of trees, underbrush, and bushes. Let the broken
branches be on the side of bush or tree in the direction you are going,
but bent down away from that side, or toward the bush, so that the
lighter underside of the leaves will show and make a plain trail. Make
these signs conspicuous and close together, for in returning, a dozen
feet without the broken branch will sometimes confuse you, especially as
everything has a different look when seen from the opposite side. By
this same token it is a wise precaution to look back frequently as you
go and impress the homeward-bound landmarks on your memory. If in your
wanderings you have branched off and made ineffectual or blind trails
which lead nowhere, and, in returning to camp, you are led astray by one
of them, do not leave the false trail and strike out to make a new one,
but turn back and follow the false trail to its beginning, for it must
lead to the true trail again. _Don't lose sight of your broken
branches._
[Illustration: Blazing the trail by bending down and breaking branches.]
If you carry a hatchet or small axe you can make a permanent trail by
blazing the trees as the woodsmen do. Kephart advises blazing in this
way: make one blaze on the side of the tree away from the camp and two
blazes on the side toward the camp. Then when you return you look for
the _one_ blaze. In leaving camp again to follow the same trail, you
look for the _two_ blazes. If you should lose the trail and reach it
again you will know to a certainty which direction to take, for two
blazes mean _camp on this side_; one blaze, _away from camp on this
side_.
=To Know an Animal Trail=
To know an animal trail from one made by men is quite important. It is
easy to be led astray by animal trails, for they are often well defined
and, in some cases, well beaten. To the uninitiated the trails will
appear the same, but there is a difference which, in a recent number of
_Field and Stream_, Mr. Arthur Rice defines very clearly in this way:
"Men step _on_ things. Animals step _over_ or around things." Then again
an animal trail frequently passes under bushes and low branches of trees
where men would cut or break their way through. To follow an animal
trail is to be led sometimes to water, often to a bog or swamp, at times
to the animal's den, which in the case of a bear might not be exactly
pleasant.
[Illustration: Returning to camp by the blazed trail.
_Note the blazed trees._]
=Lost in the Woods=
We were in the wilderness of an Adirondack forest making camp for the
day and wanted to see the beaver-dam which, we were told, was on the
edge of a near-by lake. The guide was busy cooking dinner and we would
not wait for his leisure, but leaving the rest of the party, we started
off confidently, just two of us, down the perfectly plain trail. For a
short distance there was a beaten path, then, suddenly, the trail came
to an abrupt end. We looked this side and that. No trail, no appearance
of there ever having been one. With a careless wave of his arm, the
guide had said: "Keep in that direction." "That" being to the left, to
the left we therefore turned and stormed our way through thicket and
bramble, breaking branches as we went. Sliding down declivities,
scrambling over fallen trees, dipping beneath low-hung branches, we
finally came out upon the shore of the lake and found that we had struck
the exact spot where the beaver-dam was located.
It was only a short distance from camp and it had not taken us long to
make it, but when we turned back we warmly welcomed the sight of our
blazed trail, for all else was strange and unfamiliar. Going there had
been glimpses of the water now and then to guide us, returning we had no
landmarks. Even my sense of direction, usually to be relied on and upon
which I had been tempted to depend solely, seemed to play me false when
we reached a place where our blazing was lost sight of. The twilight
stillness of the great forest enveloped us; there was no sign of our
camp, no sound of voices. A few steps to our left the ground fell away
in a steep precipice which, in going, we had passed unnoticed and which,
for the moment, seemed to obstruct our way. Then turning to the right we
saw a streak of light through the trees that looked, at first, like
water where we felt sure no water could be if we were on the right path;
but we soon recognized this as smoke kept in a low cloud by the
trees--the smoke of our camp-fire. That was our beacon, and we were soon
on the trail again and back in camp. This is not told as an adventure,
but to illustrate the fact that without a well-blazed trail it is easier
to become lost in a strange forest than to find one's way.
You may strike the trail with the one object in view of reaching your
destination as quickly as possible. This will help you to become agile
and sure-footed, to cover long distances in a short time, but it will
not allow of much observation until your mind has become alert and your
eyes trained to see quickly the things of the forests and plains, and to
read their signs correctly. Unless there is necessity for haste, it is
better to take more time and look about you as you go. To hurry over the
trail is to lose much that is of interest and to pass by unseeingly
things of great beauty. When you are new to the trail and must hurry,
you are intent only on what is just before you--usually the feet of your
guide--or if you raise your eyes to glance ahead, you notice objects
simply as things to be reached and passed as quickly as possible.
Unhurried trailing will repay you by showing you what the world of the
wild contains.
Walking slowly you can realize the solemn stillness of the forest, can
take in the effect of the gray light which enfolds all things like a
veil of mystery. You can stop to examine the tiny-leafed, creeping vines
that cover the ground like moss and the structure of the soft mosses
with fronds like ferns. You can catch the jewel-like gleam of the wood
flowers. You can breathe deeply and rejoice in the perfume of the balsam
and pine. You can rest at intervals and wait quietly for evidences of
the animal life that you know is lurking, unseen, all around you; and
you can begin to perceive the protecting spirit of the wild that hovers
over all.
To walk securely, as the woodsmen walk, without tripping, stumbling, or
slipping, use the woodsmen's method of planting the entire foot on the
ground, with toes straight ahead, not turned out. If you put your heel
down first, while crossing on a slippery log as in ordinary walking, the
natural result will be a fall. With your entire foot as a base upon
which to rest, the body is more easily balanced and the foot less likely
to slip. When people slip and fall on the ice, it is because the edge of
the heel strikes the ice first and slides. The whole foot on the ice
would not slip in the same way, and very often not at all.
Trailing does not consist merely in walking along a path or in making
one for yourself. It has a larger meaning than that and embraces various
lines of outdoor life, while it always presupposes movement of some
kind. In one sense going on the trail means going on the hunt. You may
go on the trail for birds, for animals, for insects, plants, or flowers.
You may trail a party of friends ahead of you, or follow a deer to its
drinking-place; and in all these cases you must look for the signs of
that which you seek.
=Footprints or Tracks=
In trailing animals look for footprints in soft earth, sand, or snow.
The hind foot of the muskrat will leave a print in the mud like that of
a little hand, and with it will be the fore-foot print, showing but four
short fingers, and generally the streaks where the hard tail drags
behind. Fig. 4 shows what these look like. If you are familiar with the
dog track you will know something about the footprints of the fox, wolf,
and coyote, for they are much alike. Fig. 9 gives a clean track of the
fox, but often there is the imprint of hairs between and around the
toes. A wolf track is larger and is like Fig. 8. The footprint of a deer
shows the cloven hoof, with a difference between the buck's and the
doe's. The doe's toes are pointed and, when not spread, the track is
almost heart-shaped (Fig. 7), while the buck has blunter, more rounded
toes, like Fig. 10. The two round lobes are at the back of the foot,
the other end points in the direction the deer has taken. Sometimes you
will find deer tracks with the toes spread wide apart. That means the
animal has been running. All animals' toes spread more or less when they
run. A bear track is like Fig. 11, but a large bear often leaves other
evidences of his presence than his footprints. He will frequently turn a
big log over or tear one open in his search for ants. He will stand on
his hind legs and gnaw a hole in a dead tree or tall stump, and a
bee-tree will bear the marks of his climbing on its trunk. It is
interesting to find a tree with the scars of bruin's feet, made
prominent by small knobs where his claws have sunk into the bark. Each
scar swells and stands out like one of his toes. When you see bark
scraped off the trees some distance from the ground, you may be sure
that a horned animal has passed that way. Where the trees are not far
apart a wide-horned animal, like the bull moose, scrapes the bark with
his antlers as he passes.
[Illustration: Footprints of animals.
1 Caribou
2 Mink
3 Red Squirrel
4 Fore foot of Muskrat, Hind foot of Muskrat, Tail of Muskrat
5 Fisher
6 Canada Lynx]
The cat-like lynx leaves a cat-like track (Fig. 6), which shows no print
of the claws, and the mink's track is like Fig. 2. Rabbits' tracks are
two large oblongs, then two almost round marks. The oblongs are the
print of the large hind feet, which, with the peculiar gait of the
rabbit, always come first. The large, hind-feet tracks point the
direction the animal has taken. Fig. 1 is the track of the caribou, and
shows the print of the dew-claws, which are the two little toes up high
at the back of the foot. It is when the earth is soft and the foot sinks
in deeply that the dew-claws leave a print, or perhaps when the foot
spreads wide in running.
[Illustration: Footprints of animals.
7 Doe
8 Wolf
9 Fox
10 Buck
11 Bear
12 Sheep]
Fig. 3 is the print of the foot of a red squirrel. Fig. 5 is the
fisher's track, and Fig. 12 is that of a sheep. Pig tracks are much like
those of sheep, but wider. When you have learned to recognize the
varying freshness of tracks you will know how far ahead the animal
probably is. Other tracks you will learn as you become more familiar
with the animals, and you will also be able to identify the tracks of
the wild birds.