Woodcraft and Camping

t does not need that Herbert Spencer should cross the ocean to tell us that we are an overworked nation; that our hair turns gray ten years earlier than the Englishman's; or, "that we have had somewhat too much of the gospel of work," and, "it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation." It is all true. But we work harder, accomplish more in a given time, and last quite as long as slower races. As to the gray hair—perhaps gray hair is better than none; and it is a fact that the average Briton becomes bald as early as the American turns gray. There is, however, a sad significance in his words when he says: "In every circle I have met men who had themselves suffered from nervous collapse due to stress of business, or named friends who had either killed themselves by overwork, or had been permanently incapacitated, or had wasted long periods in endeavors to recover health." Too true. And it is the constant strain, without let-up or relaxation, that, in nine cases out of ten, snaps the cord and ends in what the doctors call "nervous prostration"—something akin to paralysis—from which the sufferer seldom wholly recovers.

Mr. Spencer quotes that quaint old chronicler, Froissart, as saying, "The English take their pleasures sadly, after their fashion"; and thinks if he lived now, he would say of Americans, "they take their pleasures hurriedly, after their fashion." Perhaps.

The simplest and most primitive of all camps is the "Indian camp." It is easily and quickly made, is warm and comfortable, and stands a pretty heavy rain when properly put up. This is how it is made: Let us say you are out and have slightly missed your way. The coming gloom warns you that night is shutting down. You are no tenderfoot. You know that a place of rest is essential to health and comfort through the long, cold November night. You dive down the first little hollow until you strike a rill of water, for water is a prime necessity. As you draw your hatchet you take in the whole situation at a glance. The little stream is gurgling downward in a half choked frozen way. There is a huge sodden hemlock lying across it. One clip of the hatchet shows it will peel. There is plenty of smaller timber standing around; long, slim poles, with a tuft of foliage on top. Five minutes suffice to drop one of these, cut a twelve-foot pole from it, sharpen the pole at each end, jam one end into the ground and the other into the rough back of a scraggy hemlock, and there is your ridge pole. Now go—with your hatchet—for the bushiest and most promising young hemlocks within reach. Drop them and draw them to camp rapidly. Next, you need a fire. There are fifty hard, resinous limbs sticking up from the prone hemlock; lop off a few of these, and split the largest into match timber;

When I first came to Northern Pennsylvania, thirty-five years ago, I found game fairly abundant; and, as I wanted to learn the country where deer most abounded, I naturally cottoned to the local hunters. Good fellows enough, and conceited, as all local hunters and anglers are apt to be. Strong, good hunters and axe-men, to the manner born, and prone to look on any outsider as a tenderfoot. Their mode of building camp-fires was a constant vexation to me. They made it a point to always have a heavy sharp axe in camp, and toward night some sturdy chopper would cut eight or ten logs as heavy as the whole party could lug to camp with hand-spikes. The size of the logs was proportioned to the muscular force in camp. If there was a party of six or eight, the logs would be twice as heavy as when we were three or four. Just at dark, there would be a log heap built in front of the camp, well chinked with bark, knots and small sticks; and, for the next two hours, one could hardly get at the fire to light a pipe. But the fire was sure though slow. By 10 or 11 P.M. it would work its way to the front, and the camp would be warm and light. The party would turn in, and deep sleep would fall on a lot of tired hunters—for two or three hours.

"Go with me tomorrow morning to a spring-hole three miles up the river, and I'll show you," he said.

At the Spring-Hole

Of course, we went. He, rowing a light skiff, and I paddling a still lighter canoe. The spring-hole was in a narrow bay that set back from the river, and at the mouth of a cold, clear brook; it was ten to twelve feet deep, and at the lower end a large balsam had fallen in with the top in just the right place for getting away with large fish, or tangling lines and leaders. We moored some twenty feet above the spring-hole, and commenced fishing, I with my favorite cast of flies, my friend with the tail of a minnow. He caught a 1½-pound trout almost at the outset, but I got no rise; did not expect it. Then I went above, where the water was shallower, and raised a couple of half-pounders, but could get no more. I thought he had better go to the hotel with what he had, but my friend said "wait"; he went ashore and picked up a long pole with a bushy tip; it had evidently been used before. Dropping down to the spring-hole, he thrust the tip to the bottom and slashed it around in a way to scare and scatter every trout within a hundred feet.

"And what does all that mean?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "every trout will be back in less than an hour; and when they first come back, they take the bait greedily. Better take off your leader and try bait."

Before noon the boys are all in, and as the catch is twice as numerous and twice as large as on the previous evening, and as the weather is all that could be asked of the longest days in June, they are in excellent spirits. The boxes are brought out, pork is sliced, a can of Indian meal comes to the front, and they go for the frying-pans.

"Holy Moses! Look here. Just see the ants and bugs."

Second Man.—"Well, I should say! I can see your ants and bugs, and go you an earwig better."

Third Man (inverting his pan spitefully over the fire).—"D—n 'em, I'll roast the beggars."

Bush D. (who is something of a cook and woodsman) "Boys, I'll take the pot. I've got a thousand-legged worm at the head of a pismire flush, and it serves us right, for a lot of slovens. Dishes should be cleaned as often as they are used. Now let's scour our pans and commence right."

Their Lesson

bout 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.