%/ .-ate- ^ : ^' V--^ '> v % £?*$&*■>■+ * **mk 1 *bv ,^m^K< ^*o x ... 46 Deep Water Trout Fishing . . -. . . > . 50 A Boy Muskallonge Fisherman . . . . . . 52 A Six-Pound Pike . • . . . . .... 52 Some Prizes for the Bait Casting Outfit .... 54 The Hand Trap and Single-Barreled Shot Gun . 60 The Proper Straight Stock . >. A ... A A L .. 72 A Comparison in Gun Sizes . . . . . . .72^ Breaking Them 88 First Lessons in Wing Shooting 94 v " XV xvi ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A Boy's Gun Club at Practice 106 Pepper and the Kid Starting for a Rabbit Hunt . 116 Our Beagles and Some Rabbits . ... . .. A 116 A Setter, Pointing a Bevy of guail . .. . ... . 116 The Ruffed Grouse ... . A ... .. ... ... . ,. A 124 The Pointer ...... .. a . ... ^ . 4 . 124 Snipe Decoys Set Out ........ . # . 132 The Kid and Some of His Plover ...... 132 An Alligator Hunt 132 Making Good at Trapshooting 150 Broadbill Decoys Anchored Off a Point .... 158 A Mallard Hide in the Wild Rice 158 Throwing Out the Decoys 158 The Most Popular Big-Game, the White-Tailed Deer 164 Some Fine Wyoming Elk 170 The Author and His Cowboy Chum in Camp in Mon- tana . . . 170 Bringing Out Your Moose Head . A A ... ... . 170 The Pendulum Deer Target A ... .. A . ± .. 174 Some .22 Repeating Rifles . ... . ... . .. . 176 Some .22 Single Shots . . . . .. ± . . . 176 The King of American Predatory Game ...... 180 The Old-Fashioned Heavy Wall Tent, with Fly 190 The Author's Tent Home-Made When He Was a Boy of Twelve Years 190 The Dan Beard Tent 198 The Forester Tent 198 A Camping Outfit for Boys ....... 208 ILLUSTRATIONS xvii PAGE The Author's Perfect Shelter Tent 214 Off for a Week's Camp 214 The Boy Scout Cook Kit 222 " The Stopple Cook Kit 222 The Forester Cook Kit 222 An Encampment of the Camp Fire Club . . . 234 In Camp in a Forester Tent 234 The Western Miner's Tent 234 The Indian Fire . 246 The Nessmuk Backlog Fire 246 ^ The Indian Teepee 274 A Primitive Cook Kit 275 PAET ONE: ANGLING FOR BOYS THE BOYS' BOOK OF HUNTING AND FISHING PART ONE: ANGLING FOR BOYS CHAPTER I BATTLING BASS AND WILY TKOUT Two boys went fishing in a mountain lake, lo- cated — well, anywhere from Maine west to Wis- consin and south to Virginia and Kentucky — take your choice ! It was a lake with lily pads and tree stumps along its shores, and there were woods along the banks to camp in, with maybe a circle of forested hills surrounding it. One boy had his boat anchored out near a little rocky islet, and was still-fishing in eight feet of water with a worm, a dobber and a cane pole for big sunnies and perch. The other had a canoe and was paddling slowly along the shores, just outside the lily pads, and casting his lure at likely looking places where game fish might lurk. He possessed a wonderful accuracy with that rod and lure, and at nearly every cast sent it true to the chosen spot, maybe forty, fifty or sixty feet away, to some small bay 21 22 ANGLING FOR BOYS in the lily pads or quiet pool in front of a stump sometimes no bigger than a straw hat. Presently the boy in the boat got a bite. A de- cided jiggle dipped his float and then it went under completely. He gave the pole a yank, and in a few seconds brought up a large orange-bellied sun- fish weighing maybe half a pound, which came flopping over the side and was soon seized and strung with a lot of others on a fish line dangling over the side. The boy in the canoe went on cast- ing. His lure sailed out and landed — ker chunk! right into the lair of a foxy old black bass. The boy started reeling it back when suddenly there was a furious splash, the water boiled around the lure and instinctively the boy struck. Instantly the old demon leapt clear out of water, shaking his head in a frantic effort to throw the lure ; the boy gasped with excitement, but in the rush that followed his fingers were barked by the spinning reel handle and the bass would have gotten away except for the boy's ready left thumb which was braking hard on the reel spool. Then the bass turned and rushed towards the boat, while the boy grabbed the reel handle and reeled in line furi- ously, for to give that fish a single foot of slack meant to lose him. Under he went, straight under the canoe, but again the boy was master, for, giv- "HIS LUCK Taken on an inexpensive fly fishing- outfit. is on wrong- end of butt for good balance. Note, however, that reel BASS AND TROUT FISHING 23 ing him line as he thumbed the reel, the boy dex- terously turned the canoe with his paddle, bring- ing the bass beyond the boat again and going strong, evidently bound for some hidden snag that he knew of where the line could be tangled up and broken. This would never do, so setting back hard on the rod the boy opposed its full strength to the bass' tactics and soon turned him. This time he came up to the surface with a mag- nificent splash and the boy's heart pounded wildly as he dipped the rod tip and pulled him down again. " Jingo! another like that and he's off! Go it, you beauty ! ' ' he exclaimed exultingly. Again the bass started for the canoe, this time near the sur- face, the boy reeling like mad, and, taking advan- tage of the fish's momentum, he gave the rod a flip and the next instant the big bronze and green fel- low was thrashing wildly about in the bottom of the canoe while the boy grabbed him in both hands. "Gee! He'll go three pounds! Some battle! Eh, what!" he whooped, holding him up by the gills. He despatched the bass mercifully with his hunting knife, tied him through the gills to the canoe cross bar and resumed his casting. Now, which of those boys would you rather be, the one indolently watching a float and now and 24 ANGLING FOR BOYS then pulling up a half-pound sunfish or perch, or this one who had learned the angler's art of bait casting and has been rewarded by a thrilling bat- tle with a big game fish. You can become either. Age has got nothing to do with it for the boy that had the battle with the bass was ten years old. I know him well; in fact, he is my own son. The other boy was thirteen but the lily pads meant nothing to him — that kind of fishing he thought was for men, he was going after sunnies and perch, even in the very lake where he knew bass and pike and pickerel were to be caught — IF one knows how! Pocket book has little to do with it. The rod, reel and line used by the boy who caught the bass cost, all together, under three dollars ; he got the reel for his Christmas present (it cost Santa Claus about two dollars) ; the rod came with a subscrip- tion to a certain sportsman's magazine (it has landed a 21-pound muscallonge), and the line was the only thing he had to save up his allowances for. It cost 75 cents for 50 yards of it. Surely anything that will put you in the way of having all that sport is worth saving up for to buy the necessary tackle. After getting the equipment the boy had to put in many an hour learning, first how to cast with- BASS AND TROUT FISHING 25 out back lashing or snarling up the line with the reel, and second, how to get sureness and accuracy so as to land the lure on any spot desired even if as much as eighty feet away. And learning this is good fun for any boy, as much fun as shooting a rifle, for every cast is target practice of a high order, and to learn the game you have to get into a boat and row along casting as you go, at first with a discouraging period of dubbism and finally "arriving" at a reasonable proficiency, after which perfecting yourself in the art is a rare pleas- ure. In a word, the difference between the boy catch- ing sunnies and the one bait casting for bass is that one is just a fisherman and gets relatively lit- tle fun out of it, while the other is a sportsman ; he has acquired a fine and difficult art and he gets the thrill and excitement of many tussles with real game fish. Too difficult for a boy? Pshaw! Give him a chance and the proper rig and he will do as well as the men; look at the boys of seven to fifteen, and girls even, who win prizes with big game fish in the Juvenile Classes of the Field and Stream Prize Fishing Contest, held every year during the whole open season for bass, trout, mus- callonge and pickerel. It's up to you; bait casting and fly casting are 26 ANGLING FOR BOYS no more difficult to learn than good baseball, ten- nis, sailing, football — any of the outdoor sports which boys take to as a matter of course, as soon as they get out of tops and marbles. It is the object of these chapters to tell you what to get and what to avoid, how to learn to use rod and line, and what tactics have to be used in hooking and land- ing the bulldog bass, the gamey trout, the wolfish pike and that tiger of the inland lakes, the mus- callonge. When twelve-years-old Jack White, the boy who goes fishing with Will Dilg, one of Amer- ica's greatest bass fishermen, landed a twelve- pound musky alone and unaided, he certainly showed that none of our game fish are beyond the reach of any boy's angling ability, provided that he keeps a cool head and plays the game accord- ing to the rules. Let us move the scene a little further north, into the home of the trout, though bass and trout waters do overlap to a certain extent. The fam- ily goes to the mountains for the summer and you, the boy, are with them — you bet! There are walks to take and waterfalls to see and there is lots of tennis, with maybe some baseball. But you get tired of batting a ball over a net — a sort of hard work that gets nowhere — and you long for some real sport. Aha ! a trout stream in the vi- BASS AND TROUT FISHING 27 cinity, three miles away between Hawk Mountain and Old Baldy ! Do you cut an alder pole, dig up some worms, buy five cents' worth of line and a hook and go after them? No — by ginger, no! You have a 5-ounce fly casting rod, thirty yards of E line, a single click reel, some leaders and a few flies, say those old reliables — Parmacheene Belle, Coachman, Cow Dung, and Silver Doctor, and you put up a lunch and hike for that stream just as early as you can bolt a breakfast. Arrived there you know very well that that old worm and pin hook dodge won't work; these trout know far too much to go hang themselves on the first halter let down to them with a worm on it! Eather you keep out of sight and fish each pool upstream, be- cause you know that the trout lie with their heads upstream and cannot see back of them for a space covering an angle of about 30 degrees each way from their dorsal fin. You joint up the rod, put on the reel and string the line through the guides. Next the leader, already wetted and pliant, is tied on and finally a fly, fished dry or wet according to the water. You choose a fly resembling as nearly as possible the insects hovering over the stream, and then you are ready to cast. Look for a clear back cast, making sure that no overhanging boughs are going to snare your fly, and then start 28 ANGLING FOR BOYS getting out line. Each i ' false ' ' cast, that is, a cast in which the fly is not allowed to drop in the pool, gets the fly out further and further as you strip line from the reel. Now you begin working the cast over some chosen spot — there's one alongside that big boulder, up near the head of the pool; there'll surely be a big one in there for they al- ways usurp the best places so as to get the first of everything coming down from the ripples above. Now your fly is hovering right over him. You let it fall and it hits the side of the rock and tumbles onto the swift, dark water. Instantly there is a flash in the depths and a pink mouth rushes at the fly. Now is the time to strike — you can't take it away from him if you try — and a sec- ond later will be too late. You strike and at the same time he jumps and hooks himself hard. Now, watch out! There's a lot of alder roots hanging down into the water from that east bank and he darts over there to hide and snag your leader. Look out! — keep him off — give him the butt! Glory be, he's coming down the pool! Did you ever see such chain lightning darting about in a clear sheet of water in your life ! Now he 's gone to sulk under the big rock; we'll have to get him out of there and work him down into the shal- lows. Chuck in a pebble — that's the stuff! now BASS AND TROUT FISHING 29 we 've got him all over the pool again. Keep cool and strip in your line, holding it against the rod butt with your left forefinger as you go. Now work him into the shallows; now the net — head first — good! we've got him and did you ever see such a pretty trout in your life! He'll go thir- teen inches and he's as cold and firm as solid mus- cle can make him. Worth catching, eh! Some better than going over to Taylor's Pond after bullheads! Let's work upstream, casting every ripple and keeping a long eye out ahead for the next pool, for a new set of tactics will probably be wanted there. Such is trout fishing, another fine art; for fly casting is not to be learned in a day ; and also with that same rod and larger flies you can fish the big streams and small rivers in the Eastern and Cen- tral States for small mouth black bass who love swift, deep, rocky rivers and rise to the fly as spec- tacularly as any trout. Boys, it's worth while learning those two games ; bait casting and fly cast- ing, and as far as it can be told you on paper we are going to have a try at it. The rest is with you — given a good rod and reel, I'll bet that you'll fly at the practising part of it with all the zeal that you ever gave to any game — and then for the big game fish ! CHAPTER II THE TACKLE TO GET AND HOW. TO USE IT — BLACK BASS Thebe are two ways of taking the fighting black bass, viz. by bait-casting for him with the short rod and highspeed reel and by fly-casting with the standard fly rod, perhaps a trifle heavier than the usual thing for trout. Of the two, bait-casting is undoubtedly the more spectacular, harder to learn, and harder to land your fish when hooked. In principle bait-casting reverts to that old game that all country boys play of hurling an apple from the end of a pointed stick. You jab the stick through your apple, take aim at the oppos- ing boy and soak him with it, and the speed and accuracy with which that apple goes far exceeds anything that can be done with hand throwing. Many is the battle royal that we boys had in the old orchard using the sling stick, and many the hard sting from the bullet-like little green apples ! In the bait-casting outfit you have a short rod 5 feet 6 inches long, a highspeed multiplying reel, a fine braided silk line of about 12 pounds break- 30 TACKLE FOR BLACK BASS 31 ing strength, and a lure which may be a live frog, a pork minnow and spinner, or one of the numer- ous artificial lures. With this outfit you can cast that lure up to about 125 feet, and cast it with the greatest accuracy at the usual fishing distances of about 40 feet. An expert can pick up any one of a dozen floating objects at will with the hooks on his lure. Black bass lie in wait for their prey under the lily pads along their outer edges, under the roots of old stumps, under floats and docks, and in lairs under overhanging bushes; and woe betide any luckless minnow or frog which ventures out across their lurking places, There is a splash and a whirl and f roggie or minnow is grabbed and bolted whole before he hardly realises what has happened to him. The game is to work your boat slowly along about 50 feet outside the lily pads and cast every likely spot where a bass is apt to lie in wait. If artfully done, your lure so resembles a minnow or frog making a voyage of discovery that the bass at once strikes and is completely deceived, to his own undoing. Further than this, the bass is so pugnacious that he is apt to take a crack at almost anything struggling in the water or ploughing along on the surface ; he honestly believes that he is the boss of that whole lake and he will pounce 32 ANGLING FOR BOYS on anything that appears to be making hostile demonstrations. It is this quality that lies at the success of many artificial top water lures looking unlike anything under the sun or the waters be- neath. So long as they struggle or throw up a splash they look good to Mr. Bass and he comes at them like a whirlwind. Getting back to the tackle, the rod used is best made of split bamboo and may cost anywhere from one to ten dollars. It is short and stiff, not too whippy nor too long, about your own height is good, and for ordinary fishing for bass, pickerel and pike — up to about four pounds — the dollar rod will answer very well. Such a rod will be two- piece for convenience in carrying and will have three guides of nickled steel, two on the tip and one on the butt piece. The reel seat is ahead of the grip, not behind it as in trout fishing. The bamboo used in these rods is machine fitted and of fair quality, amply good enough for so short a rod to withstand any strains put on it in fishing. For about three dollars a better mounted rod can be had with agate tip, which prolongs the life of the line considerably since it is the friction of the constant casting of the line through the tip guide which wears both it and the line out. However, for a boy beginning to learn bait-casting I would BULLY GOOD BASS WATER All these coves alorg shore deserve a cast from vour lure You Sn, n¥° n fM ■ the canoe, about the distance from shore of the fore" ground of this picture, and land your lure accurately in these coves reeling back immediately your lure touches the water. You may set a strike, any time, up to three feet from the boat CASTING FROM SHORE If you have no boat, cast from shore plug and is liable to get now up to a short distance This boy is using strike any time from where from his feet. a revolving the lure is TACKLE FOR BLACK BASS 33 not advise a rod costing more than a dollar, at least for the first year or so. The reel is the most important article in the out- fit. Thousands of times during the day's fishing that reel spins at high speed, each time fifteen or twenty yards of line are cast off: it and its gears and journals need to be well made and kept well oiled. Then a big four-pounder gets hold of your lure and yanks unmercifully on the reel and will strip every gear in it if poorly made. About the cheapest bait-casting reel that can be relied upon costs $2 in brass, nickle plated. It should be quad- ruple multiplying, capable of spinning free at least sixteen seconds on one spin, rather wide in proportion to its diameter, and should hold 80 to 100 yards of No. 5 line. It should be easily taken apart and should be cleaned and oiled after every day's fishing. The frame may have stout pins or stanchions or else be cut out of a solid cylinder like many of the "Take-apart" reels costing around three dollars. My own boy has used a $2 Shakespeare reel for the last two years and it has never yet failed him during week after week of bait-casting for bass and pickerel and I won sev- eral tournaments with that same reel before I got a better one. The line used in bait-casting is of fine braided 34 ANGLING FOR BOYS silk, the finer the better; avoid coarse thick lines as they are very hard to cast and all accuracy dis- appears as soon as any distance is introduced. As the wind is constantly drifting your boat while you are casting, you need accuracy at all sorts of distances and for this the fine light braided silk line is needed. A good all-round selection is the Kingfisher No. 5 of 12 pounds breaking strength costing about $1 for a spool of fifty yards, though there are many others nearly as good and cheaper, say 75 cents for 50 yards. Equipped with rod, reel and line, pick out any artificial lure weighing about an ounce and you are ready to learn the art. In casting only the forearm is used ; never swipe with your whole arm unless trying for a distance record. Begin the cast well over your shoulder with the rod point- ing backward nearly horizontal. Put most of the impetus of your cast in the beginning of the stroke and stop the rod when it is pointing for- ward at about 45 degrees or even less. The lure should fly out in a rather flat arc and your care will be to thumb the reel spool so as to pre- vent it over-travelling and causing a backlash. Here is the crux of the matter, getting that knack of delicate thumbing the reel, just enough to keep the spool from over running, not enough to retard BAIT CASTING RODS The top rod is a one-piece split bamboo with agate guides, 5 ozs., 5 ft. 2 in. long, worth about $5.00. The second is the famous Field and Stream rod, 5 ozs., 5 ft. 6 in., two-piece, with nickeled steel guides, worth about $1.50; has caught a 21 lb. muskallonge. The third ro.d is all-steel, about $2.00; a good boy's rod, as it has no wrappings to come undone. The fourth is a short, 4 ft. trolling rod. BAIT CASTING REELS A good pne should spin 26 seconds without stopping. The two on the left hand are "takaparts," worth about $3.00, and on the right is one with a level winding attachment. A good, plain bait casting reel, good enough for anything but tournament casting, may be had for $2.00. The line costs 75 cents for 50 yards, 12 lb., braided silk. THE PROPER GRIP Note thumb resting on reel pillar, with tip just touching the surface of the drum; also position of forefinger and third, fourth and fifth fingers in casting. TACKLE FOR BLACK BASS 35 the flight of the lure. The ball of your thumb rests solidly on one of the reel frame pillars and the tip of your thumb just touches the surface of the line on the spool. As the lure plays out, the thumb follows in on the drum (done by slightly raising your thumb knuckle). When the lure hits the water your thumb instantly stops the reel, the rod is transferred to your left hand and your right begins reeling in. Do not let the lure rest an in- stant but start it right back or the illusion of a minnow or a frog leaping into the water and swim- ming away is lost and the bass gets wise to your blandishments. In reeling in, keep the rod tip low and at right angles to the line so as to have maxi- mum room to strike in, for when a bass hits your lure it does not take him a second to find out that it is a fraud and you must strike quick and hard as soon as he does. Once hooked, the whole game is reel play. The rod is so short that it only has about two feet of bend and will not give and take for nine or ten feet the way a fly rod will, so that you must manage your fish from the reel. Some brake the reel by their left forefinger over the rod in front of the reel drum; others use their left thumb resting on the frame pillar. I prefer the lat- ter as it gives all the remaining four fingers to grip the rod. When the bass rushes let him go 36 ANGLING FOR BOYS and brake the reel; as soon as he stops grab the reel handle and start him for the boat. Remem- ber that if he gets a foot of slack he will shake his head and flip the lure out of his mouth unless very securely hooked. So keep a tight line on him, take it easy, keep cool, don't yank anything or break tackle and try to tire him out. Work the boat into deep water and get him away from snags, underbrush and lily pad roots, for if he gets you tangled up in them it's all off! Learning ac- curacy, and getting over the dub period of hav- ing a backlash at nearly every cast is slow, uphill work, but the practice is great fun for there is a fascination about bait-casting exactly like in rifle, revolver and shot-gun practice. It is shooting at a mark, with no expenditure for ammunition, for you wind up your missile every time and shoot it again. But, by being careful not to get too strong with your cast, putting most of your im- pulse into the beginning of the cast, careful thumb- ing of the reel spool, and careful spooling of the line when you reel it in, you will make good prog- ress. My own boy got to be a fairly good caster in about a week's practice. By "spooling" the line is meant spreading it evenly on the reel spool, for, if allowed to bunch up anywhere, it will run out from under your thumb faster than the thumb LANDING A PIKE ON THE FLY ROD Note tvDicai fishing- skiff of the western lake region and large land- fng ne? Don't get one too small if you want to avoid losing big fish at the last moment. FLY FISHING FOR BASS Note larger reels and heavier rods than are used for trout; about 6 oz. steel or split bamboo is right. TACKLE FOR BLACK BASS 37 can brake it and yon will surely get a backlash. Spooling is done by your left thumb, over which the line passes, and is laid back and forth over the reel drum by moving your thumb across the rod. Now, as to lures. For lilypad lakes where the large-mouth black bass flourishes, the most effec- tive are the live frog and the pork chunk or min- now, hung on a red Bing fly with a spinner in front. There is a special large weighted hook with a tie line for strapping the frog down by which he is tied around his waist, leaving his arms and legs free to move. After about twenty casts give your frog a rest, take him off and put him back in the pail, tying on a new one. The bass usually seizes a frog by his hind leg. Stop reel- ing and let him run off with it. You can feel him turn the frog and gulp him down, and then is the time to strike. I confess to a dislike for using live frogs for bait, and much prefer the pork chunk or minnow. The illustrations show how these lures are made. You have a large red "Bing" fly, weighted, costing about 50 cents. In front of this is a split ring, a brass swivel, a sec- ond split ring with a spoon in it, and another swivel ahead of it. In the bend of the hook is the pork chunk or minnow, the latter a four-inch strip 38 ANGLING FOR BOYS of pork rind with an inch split at the end to make a forked tail. As this lure is reeled in past the lilypads, the spoon spins around, making a bright flash in the water to attract attention and at the same time making a waving current which wiggles the pork minnow as if alive. It will deceive any- bass, and as he always strikes for the red throat of a minnow, he strikes at the red fly and hooks himself. If fishing for pickerel, which always strike at the tail of a minnow, put on a treble hook in the bend of the big red fly hook, letting it dangle alongside the pork minnow, and Mr. Pickerel is pretty sure to hook himself when he strikes at the tail. For small-mouth bass in rocky waters without lilypads I have generally found the artificial lures good takers. They are easily cast, and are always ready for duty, and the bass seem to strike better at those that have plenty of red on them or at least a red stripe at the throat. Most of these lures are simply cast at likely spots and reeled in, the bass likely striking until within ten feet of the boat, but all the topwaters are fished on a different principle, the idea being to imitate something struggling on the surface of the water and not making any great progress at it either. Where- upon some bass concludes that here is a good meal TACKLE FOR BLACK BASS 39 for him — a frog or something or other in difficul- ties and trying to keep himself afloat. Still other topwaters have a collar or revolving blades which flash, and to see that thing plough- ing insolently along on the surface is more than any pugilistic bass can stand. He'll show you who's boss of this lake !— Biff !— if he doesn't hook himself he will knock that plug at least six feet in the air! For lakes filled with small bass ranging around a pound in weight, the casting lures generally fail; the bass are too small and afraid of the lure. In that case put on a small spinner with a couple of sinkers to make it cast easier and all will be well. Or try them with flies ; one or the other will surely get results. All these lures are useful in their proper place — the pork minnow through and over the lilypads and in the pickerel weed; the red underwaters along rocky banks, overhung with trees and strewn with boulders, which form deep, dark lurk- ing places for piratical bass ; the topwaters in deep water, where one can hardly see bottom, but down there are the big fellows ; and the pork chunk for stumpy waters and shallow bays, up in the flags where big large-mouth bass are lying in wait for frogs. It is the judicious selection of these lures and the circumvention of the bass with them; the 40 ANGLING FOR BOYS accuracy required to place them right in the proper spot ; and the coolness and skill required in handling these big gamey fish when hooked that make the angler's art of bait-casting so fascinat- ing, and I do not know of an outdoor sport more appealing to boys. And, when you combine it with a camp for a week on the shores of a good bass lake — say, fellah, shake ! CHAPTER III THE TACKLE TO GET AND HOW TO USE IT — ELY CASTING EOR TROUT I presume it is the poets, with their songs about the gossamer lines and fairy wands of the trout angler, that have spread the false impression that a trout line is something fine as a spider's web. At least that is the popular idea, and boys pick up the same notion from what they hear. But let us look at the fundamentals of taking a trout and then build up the proper tackle to fit the case. In the first place you must present him a fly, appar- ently detached from anything else, and in such a way that the trout has no idea that there is a hu- man connected with it in any way. That means distance from you to him, a line heavy enough to be cast that distance, and an invisible leader at least six feet long connecting the fly to this line. If the line was not heavy it would not shoot through the rod guides and that effectually dis- poses of any idea of using a thread for a trout line. "What you really cast is the line itself, and the leader and fly follow along because they are 41 42 ANGLING FOR BOYS tied to it. To cast a line you must have a long rod so as to put your throwing impulse into con- siderable weight of line • a short rod will not do be- cause when you have from forty to sixty feet of line out you cannot pick it up off the water at every cast unless your rod is long. Hence we get the standard trout tackle ; a light, pliant rod 9 to 10 feet long; a heavy, tapered enamelled line; a light "gossamer" (that's where the gossamer comes in), leader and a fly. With these you can take trout ; without them not — unless he is a fool. You will note that the reel is hardly mentioned ; it is in reality the least important part of the out- fit, all it is for is to hold some 30 yards of trout line and occasionally it comes into play in handling the fish, but most anglers play him on the line alone, ' ' stripping ' ' it in as required and holding it under the left forefinger when taking a fresh hold on the line. The most important part of a trout outfit is, then, the rod. A good one costs money, for it is ten feet long against five for the bait-cast- ing rod and only the best bamboo, well fitted and wrapped every few inches will give a rod stiff enough yet pliant enough to cast the line and play the fish when hooked. However, for a boy, from $2.50 to $5 will buy a rod plenty good enough to begin with. It should have a cork grip with a THE TACKLE FOR TROUT 43 strong reel seat at the butt of the rod, " snake' ' guides every foot along the rod, three joints with an extra tip, and silk windings spaced about four inches apart. The material will be of split bam- boo, the darker the better. Lancewood and steel have their advocates and the latter has the advan- tage for boys in that when neglected it will not deteriorate as rapidly as split bamboo, varnish and wrappings are sure to do. Lancewood is apt to lose its strength from dry rot if put away in a damp closet or garret, and, on the whole, the best action in your rod at a moderate expense is got- ten with split bamboo. Avoid the swinging ring guides, for the " snake' ' type are much surer and stronger. Be sure that the reel seat is below, not above, the handle. The latter place is for a bait- fishing rod and gives no balance for fly-casting. The line will cost you anywhere from one to seven dollars and its weight should fit the weight of the rod. For boys a 5-ounce rod 9 feet 6 inches or 10 feet long will be about right and it needs a size E line which can be had of fair quality, not tapered, for a dollar for 30 yards. Leaders are made of fine single gut, knotted into six-foot lengths, with a loop at one end for the line and at the other for the fly. The < « mist ' ' colour is the most invisible in clear waters, and you will need two or more lead- 44 ANGLING FOR BOYS ers for one is sure to get lost in snag or tree. The reel should be a plain, single, click reel costing from 50 cents to a dollar and the flies, half a dozen of each, need not be of more than four or five vari- eties, the best known killers in the part of the coun- try you expect to fish. For all-round flies, the ones that appear to be almost universal in their attractiveness are Parmacheene Belle, a white fly with red whisp of a tail; Coachman, a brown fly with white wings; Cow Dung, a brown fuzzy specimen with brown wings ; and some highly col- oured type, such as Silver Doctor or Montreal. Having the tackle the next thing is how to use it, and the first lesson is how to cast. All begin- ners thrash the rod about like a whip and wonder that no matter how much force they put into it the line fails to respond. The reason is that you are not giving the rod a chance. After you get through, the rod, being springy and having a heavy line on it, wants to keep on, so that it may even touch the ground behind you and is then in no position to cast the line. Let us begin this way ; with say, ten feet of the line out on the water in front of you, strip a yard off the reel with your left hand and raise the rod smartly, tip first. That action will not only throw the line upward and backwards but it will take THE TACKLE FOR TROUT 45 along the yard of line that you stripped. Now when your rod is perpendicular stop your hand (the whole movement is from your elbow to your wrist only). The line keeps on going backwards and bends the rod back with it. Pretty soon the line will straighten out backwards, straight back from your rod tip; it has bent the rod all it can and now the rod of its own accord begins to switch it forward. You can feel that instant dis- tinctly in the action of the rod. Now is your time — you give it an impulse forward with the wrist only, and, as it shoots out forward, you strip a lit- tle more line off the reel and this goes out along with the forward cast and the whole thing rolls out straight ahead on the water, At the same time leader and fly straighten out beyond the line and the fly drops like a feather with no visible connection between it and the line. Now suppose a trout were lying there with his head upstream and that fly fell just in front of his nose — wouldn't he take it? Of course he would, unless there was something suspicious about the fly itself. There would be a flash and a pink mouth rushing at the fly and you'd have to strike right off or he would beat you to it and reject the fly before you could possibly set the hook. Well, anyway, you had ten feet of line out, now 46 ANGLING FOR BOYS you have sixteen, not counting the leader and fly. Lift the rod and make another cast, stripping line off the reel so that with the next forward impulse yon will have 22 feet. There's an art about be- ginning the cast that you might as well learn right now: Lift the rod high at the butt at the start, the object being to lift the line gently from the water before beginning to snap it backwards. A careless fisherman will whip it right back without trying to lift it off the water, with the result that his line cuts a regular streak across the water and frightens every trout into his hiding place. The fine art is to so lift your line that the fly jumps off it without a drag or a ripple— the chances are a trout will jump after it then and there ! Be care- ful about beginning your forward cast until your back cast is all through; give the line time to straighten out behind, for if you start it back too soon it will be snapped like a whip and the fly will get snapped off in a few such casts. And above all, do not let your rod butt go back of perpendicu- lar ; its own springiness alone will take its tip back- wards some forty degrees back of perpendicular and if you add to this with your wrist it will go back almost horizontal and have no leverage on the line for the forward cast, in fact you are handi- capped almost as much as if you had a short rod. EASTERN" AND WESTERN BROOK TROUT On the left, the beautiful Eastern brook trout; right, the Western cut- throat trout, found in all the Rocky Mountain streams. THE TACKLE FOR TROUT 47 The above describes the ordinary overhead cast. It requires some practice to get the knack of and to perfect oneself in, but not nearly so much as in bait-casting. It can be used in all streams where there is room for a back-cast, and the novice will have no trouble in getting out thirty to forty or even fifty feet of line with it — ample enough for most trout streams and too much for the majority of them. The next thing to learn is the false cast. Say you have discovered a trout up near the head of a pool, or else good water where there is likely to be one. Now if you go splashing about that pool with your lure you will probably scare him, and if you climb around where he can see you it's all off. The thing to do is to get out lure without al- lowing your fly to touch the water until it is being cast right over him and then drop it on his nose. To do this we make false casts, that is we begin with, say, twenty feet of line in the air, stripping and casting, recovering each forward cast before the fly touches the water, gradually lengthening our line and working it over to the trout's position until it can be dropped right in front of him. The trick is not to let your rod go much forward of the perpendicular and begin your forward impulse a little earlier. Instead of aiming to cast forward 48 ANGLING FOR BOYS over the water, try to cast at a point up in the trees. Your wrist now stops the rod a little back of perpendicular, and you start your back cast the minute the fly stretches out in the air ahead of your line and before it begins to fall. A little practice will get the knack, and still more, casting at a hoop floating in the water, will give you ac- curacy. Begin at thirty feet (which is easy), in- crease gradually until you get up to fifty feet, which is about the limit for accurate work. On the stream you will need rubber boots or waders to really get all the fishing that is possible, for bank fishing is limited, by lack of room for a back cast, to very few possibilities. Much good water will be inaccessible for lack of waders and many fine spots will be hopeless because the bushes back of you are too thick to cast. A creel or basket is useful, but not necessary, and a landing net is almost essential, as a trout is never more likely to get off than when right at your feet in the shallows and seemingly played out and ready to pick up by hand. CHAPTER IY KINKS ON CATCHING GAME FISH In our last chapter on fly fishing for trout we outlined what is known among anglers as the "wet fly" method of trout fishing. This is uniformly successful in troubled waters and in wild and lit- tle fished streams, where the trout have scarce learnt to regard human beings as deadly enemies and will take any old bunch of tinsel and feathers that looks like a fly. But, like all wild things, trout are a good deal smarter than the uninitiated give them credit for, and soon learn that any one along the banks of the stream, particularly if he waves a rod, is an enemy, and they soon learn that any fly which does not resemble a real insect is apt to have a deadly sting in its tail. The success of all four of the flies given in our last, Parmacheene Belle, Coachman, Cow Dung and Gray Palmer, is because they all closely resemble native insects, the Parmacheene looking very like a small white moth, the Coachman resembling a certain brown- winged beetle, which, with its white under wings, sometimes drops spent on the water, and the other 49 50 ANGLING FOR BOYS two resemble common wood flies and gray moths respectively. In May the Yellow Sally is a par- ticularly effective fly because of the great hatch of May flies which occurs in May and part of June. It is only recently that an American angler and artist, Mr. Louis Khead-, made a systematic study of the native insects of our trout streams, tied flies in imitation of these insects, and reported the results in Field and Stream. But in England the trout have been " educated' ' for a long time, and it is necessary to do more than get out a cast of flies to take them, so that the English method known as "dry fly" fishing has come into vogue in which not only are all the flies tied in exact imi- tation of the natural insect but this imitation, the cast being a single fly, not two, is dropped on the surface of the water where it floats with the cur- rent, precisely as does the natural insect when spent. If there is no suspicious drag of the leader visible in the water the deception is com- plete and the trout rises. This method is com- paratively new in our country as the flies must be especially tied with bristles and wings cocked to make them float, and not many of our flies are so tied or attempt to imitate any particular insect. However, those that do — and there are quite a few of them that any boy can pick out after spending ! p g- ►o 3 05 ^j — P > S?s S ~ H ^S » V c+ H S'3 W P i ,_, o *I <*3 so O P PIKE AND MUSCALLONGE 51 a day studying the insects of his particular trout stream — can be made to float by using "dry fly oil" or paraffine. It comes in a small bottle with a stopper to which a brush is attached. Daub your fly over with this and it will float nicely, even in troubled turbulent water, and will be a great killer, for our trout are wary of wet flies coming downstream under water but easily deceived by one which floats. After a few casts in rough water your paraffined fly will get wet and sink under, but a few false casts dry it enough to make it float again. The oil gradually washes out, so that it needs a new daubing every quarter hour or so, but I have found the dry fly method more taking than wet in most eastern trout streams. In very rough waters, where the natural fly is always sucked under and drowned before he reaches the trout, the wet fly method will always be successful even more so than the dry, but for fishing quiet pools and swift water not too white, the floating fly is the thing — fished upstream or across the stream, of course, and stripped in gradually as it floats towards you. There are three species of trout which are found in the Eastern and Central States; native brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis) ; European introduced brown trout, which can thrive in waters warmer 52 ANGLING FOR BOYS than the native trout can stand ; and rainbow trout, which do not leap but are fine fighters for all that. Further west the cutthroat and bullhead trout swarm in the Rocky Mountain streams, together with steelheads, rainbows and native Salvelinus. These run large and prefer a spinner, or a spoon made of the belly of a whitefish, or else they will take a grasshopper — in any case rising to the fly also, which they want large; Royal Coachman in- stead of plain, etc. In all these trout, from East to West, the best fishing is got wading up stream be- cause the trout cannot see back himself for 30 de- grees on each side of the dorsal fin and he in- variably lies head upstream. If you must fish from the bank conceal yourself from view and either drop the fly through the alders or willows and spin it on the surface, or cast from a point out of sight behind the bank. I have seldom fished a stream so wild that neglect of these simple pre- cautions has not resulted in frightening the trout, putting them all down and spoiling the water for several hours. In fly fishing for bass no such precautions are necessary. The boat is in plain sight as it floats along past likely spots, and the casts are made forty and fifty feet long dropping the fly over likely looking lurking places. The bass does not care a A BOY MUSKALLONGE FISHERMAN Jack White, 11 years old, who caught a 12-lb. Muskallonge in the Field and Stream National Fishing Contest. A SIX-POUND PIKE. Note lure in pike's mouth. PIKE AND MUSCALLONGE 53 whoop about the boat and has no fear of man or devil. He sees apparently a juicy fly above him and when he starts for it strike quick and hard, for the only place you can sink a hook is in his tongue, the mouth being of bony cartilage studded with many tiny sharp teeth. If he gets an instant to taste that fly he discovers and spits out the fraud faster than you can strike. In playing him the same line-stripping tactics are resorted to as with trout besides handling the boat when he tries to go under it. As the rod follows his every move with the fatality of Nemesis, he is much easier played than with the short bait casting rod and high speed reel. The bass fly rod, however, must be a fine stick of bamboo to withstand his rushes and head him off when he starts for the snags — not less than 5 ounce weight being strong enough. While a ten to fourteen inch trout is an event in the East, bass may run from four to five pounds, and he puts up a much sterner fight because of his weight. Following the bass come the Esox tribes — pike, pickerel, and muscallonge. The pickerel is not much fun on the bait casting rod because he will turn somersaults out of water and is easily brought to boat, but on a fly rod, taken with a large white fly, he yields an excellent fight. They 54 ANGLING FOR BOYS average from one to two pounds and a three or four pounder is quite a fish. With the bait casting rod any minnow, plug, or spoon is effective, pro- vided that it has a treble hook in the tail. All the Esox families pounce on their prey from behind, while the bass strikes at the throat, and that big shovel-shaped jaw of the pickerel is solid bone with a lot of rat teeth studded around it. A single hook will invariably go flat and pull out between his jaws unless he has swallowed your lure, but a treble hook always presents one of the three in catching position while the other two lie flat against upper or lower jaw bone. Pike, especially the Great Northern pike or "pickerel," are much larger than the true pickerel which has never been known to exceed eight pounds. They average four or five pounds weight, and specimens up to 27 pounds are common. Spoons, spinners and the pork rind minnow are the best takers for bait cast- ing along the outer edges of the lilypads, and for deep trolling a large spinner with live minnow is always good. The muscallonge, the largest of the tribe, is com- mon in the Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northern Michi- gan and Ontario lakes, and may run up to forty pounds though averaging 12 to 25. He is taken trolling with spoon and bait casting rod, over beds SOME PRIZES FOR THE BAIT-CASTING OUTFIT Great Northern Pike; 27% lbs. and 26*4 lbs. PIKE AND MUSCALLONGE 55 where he is known to lie, also bait casting for him with large artificial minnows. Once on he puts up a spectacular fight and takes half an hour or more to land. The line should be braided silk of about 20 pounds breaking strength with a copper leader two feet long, for his teeth are pretty apt to saw through a gut leader or the line itself if attached directly to the plug. Any bait casting rod will answer provided it is reasonably stiff and strong. A 21 pound muscallonge was recently landed on the two-piece split bamboo rod given away as a premium by Field and Stream and costing in the open market not over a dollar. In general the "star" times to fisH are early morning and from four to seven in the evening when the wind has died down and the sun sets over lake and stream in a blaze of burnished glory. At these two times the fish are about and stirring and will notice anything that looks like food. At mid- day, in common with all other wild things, they become apathetic and you might as well enjoy yourself about camp and rest up for the evening's fishing. With trout the same conditions hold to a lesser extent, the condition of the water and the rise of insects being more important than the time of day. There are a thousand kinks and knacks in the 56 ANGLING FOR BOYS art of angling which any bright boy will quickly pick up from older anglers ; the thing is to get the right outfit and get started. A generation ago boys were loath to travel much in search of sport ; if there was no bass or trout fishing near home they did not go at all or contented themselves with sunfish and perch. Nowadays they realise that a dollar or so for carfare to some secluded lake is money well spent particularly if a tent and camp- ing outfit is taken along. Fishing for the game fish is good, exciting sport. I have tried in these articles to sketch out what it is like and to indi- cate tackle that is good yet inexpensive, well within range for a Christmas or birthday present, and not out of reach of pocket money savings if you go at it gradually. While only the most ele- mentary directions have been given in the small space available what I have written is advice that boys of my acquaintance have used to start in right with. You will soon make angler friends among the men, who are only too glad to help any am- bitious boy sportsman along, and who will tell you many more of the finer points of the game than I have had space for. Try it, boys, you who love the woods and streams, and learn what a vast dif- ference there is between "just fishing' ' and real angling for the fighting breeds of game fishes. PAET TWO: SHOOTING FOE BOYS PART TWO: SHOOTING FOR BOYS CHAPTER I FIRST LESSONS WITH THE HAND TRAP The Boy in this story, it should be explained be- forehand, had been down to Barnegat on a surf fishing and snipe shooting camp in the sand dunes, where for three days he popped away in the blinds with the grown men of the expedition, giving a very good account of himself indeed and turning in thirty-four birds out of forty-seven shells. He used a light 4% pound Stevens single-shot 28- gauge with automatic ejector, a hard-shooting lit- tle weapon, and with his light charges of % ounce No. 10's did quite as well as we men did with our big twelve-gauge guns and No. 8 shot. Every- thing from willets to lesser yellowlegs went down before that spiteful little gun, topping off with a marsh hawk shot for a specimen, and all of the Kid's shots were on the wing, too! In all it was a record to make any boy of ten years' age ac- quire a swelled head. But his stern father did not consider that he had any more than just begun to 59 60 SHOOTING FOR BOYS learn the art of wing shooting. The boy showed unusual promise, that was all, but I could see no reason for deviating from that long course of trap and field shooting that teaches one perfect form with the shotgun. And let me tell you that, much as I love fine work with the grooved bore, good rifle shooting eventually leads to the same art as the shotgun — quick, accurate gun pointing. The military shot may take his time and land in the thousand-yard bull'seye after due calculation of windage and mirage, but what the woodsman and the big game sportsman needs is the ability to take a swift and accurate aim at moving objects — say, a flying deer or an elk at a hundred yards — and get him ! And this can only be done by the man who has had good form in handling a gun drilled into him from his youth. So the Boy, for all his fine record, started right in at the foot of the ladder, the hand trap at short ranges, set with an easy spring. This trap is shown in our pictures. It costs five dollars and three or four boys who are anxious to become wing shots will do well to club in and get one as it is money well spent, for being a good wing shot is an accomplishment that every gentleman should take pride in and the time to learn it is when you are a boy. With this trap you can throw clay pigeons quite as fast and accur- THE HAND TRAP AND SINGLE-BARRELED SHOT GUN All the equipment needed to learn wing shooting FIRST LESSONS IN SHOOTING 61 ately as with the standard fixed trap, and it can be carried easily to any specified spot where you have room to practise without danger of hitting any passing wagons or automobiles. It imitates fairly well the flight of the different game birds and is just the thing for all kinds of "surprise fire" stunts. The regulation trap spring, throw- ing arm, and finger holder have been transplanted to an iron frame shaped like a large horse pistol, weighing six pounds (about the same weight as a boy's shotgun), and it can be loaded and fired by any boy; that is, there is nothing about the handling of it that requires a man's strength. The boy carrying it has a canvas bag slung over his shoulder containing clay pigeons — those little four-inch black-and-yellow saucers which make such a satisfactory target for the shot-gun — and walks along behind the shooter, firing a clay pigeon at unexpected moments and at any angle that suits his fancy. Of course we did not begin that way. The easiest shot, and the one that every man who goes afield should be the best acquainted with, is the low, straight-away "quail" shot directly ahead, much as the central bird in a covey of quail flies. Indeed it is this shot which is always given the visiting sportsman down South, where our chival- 62 SHOOTING FOR BOYS rous hosts insist upon your taking the station just behind the pointing dog, since there is always one quail which will fly directly away from the dog thus giving the visitor the surest shot. It was this bird that I started the boy in upon. Kneeling beside him I tilted the trap at a slight angle, told him just where the bird would go, and even allowed him to put his gun to shoulder before springing the trap. Eesult of our first shot, a clean miss! Hooray for Barnegat! There was a wire fence just twenty yards in front of us, which gave me an accurate guess as to how far away the bird was when he fired. He had shot miles too soon, blazing away before the bird was hardly over the fence. Now, as a clay pigeon, even with the spring set light, will go twenty-five yards in the first second, the kid was trying to hit 'em in less than one second — why, the veteran trap shots take four-fifths seconds for their aim, and here he was trying to equal them ! All this I cussed into him — he never had a more forceful teacher — but the next two shots were also misses, all shot at too fast. Then I elevated the trap quite a bit, giving him more skyline as a background and more time to aim, and he smashed the first one. It was not a good smash, just a bird broken in half — probably two pellets hit it — but the Kid was pleased as FIRST LESSONS IN SHOOTING 63 Punch and he got back a lot of confidence in him- self. ^ « < That 's the talk ! ' > I encouraged. * < Take your time and find 'em before you pull trigger ! Be- member that these are rising birds, and be sure to cover them with the gun muzzle before you shoot. If you see the bird over the sights, when you pull trigger on rising birds you will surely undershoot and score a miss. Try a shell loaded with No. 10's now." We had both ten and 7%'s chilled, as I was afraid that the spread of shot with a 28- gauge shooting the 7%'s would be too great to get many birds, and so brought along a lot of regu- lar quail shells for the 28, loaded with tens chilled. These tens cannot be depended upon to break a clay pigeon however, as we picked up quite a few later with one and two pellet holes in them that had been scored as "Lost" This time however the range of these high thrown birds was compara- tively short and the Boy pulverised the saucer in great shape and began to feel like Barnegat days again. Next we tried a shell loaded with 7% 's and he broke that pigeon also. I now felt that he had got his confidence well in hand and we started in on "quail" again. Kneel- ing beside the shooter you elevate the trap just enough to get a good sky line and spring it as he 64 SHOOTING FOR BOYS advances toward the fence. I started with easy- straightaways and he smashed them in one-two- three order, shooting with both eyes wide open and always carrying the gun below the elbow, as in actual field work. Let me caution you right here as an old time shooter, never to allow the boy with the trap to go in front of the boy with the gun under any pretext whatever. He must al- ways be behind the other, and this applies also to the temptation to shoot across the line of advance from a concealment in a thicket — never do it unless the boy with the trap is behind a rock or other im- pervious object. For a gun is always dangerous, and when it is cocked and the shooter looking for a target to spring suddenly before him, no one should be in front of him at any angle whatsoever. This as a rule will give rather short ranges for the hand trap, but the rule should be inexorable. When you want the bird to spring from the ground any distance in front of the shooter use a standard fixed trap, or else a shotproof pit or screen of some sort. Getting back to our lessons. The Boy got to be a bear on straightaway "quail" right ofY, so I started them at unknown angles, still keeping them low. We used both tens and 7%'s and there did not seem to be any particular difference, as he got FIRST LESSONS IN SHOOTING 65 most of them just over the fence at about twenty- five yards from the gun muzzle. Taking them at unknown angles he averaged 65 per cent, hits, very fair for the first twenty-five shells. On the second twenty-five we continued the "quail" shots, sprinkling in a few high fliers, and it was pretty to see him shower these into frag- ments like a bursting bit of fireworks, for which stunt he got a handclap from a passing automobile. He missed nearly half of these, principally be- cause they were so unexpected that he made his old mistake of firing too soon. It is a good fault, however; far better than pottering over a bird until it is out of range, which is always a sure miss. There are three other kinds of birds which can be imitated with the hand trap besides the "quail" flying away from you. These are, crossing shots as in pass duck shooting thrown from behind a board sign or big tree, the trap boy being some twenty yards in front of the shooter and not less than eighteen yards to one side of his line of ad- vance ; straight head-on shots, thrown from behind a bank on whistle signal, as in incoming ducks ; and crossing high fliers, thrown from a rock ledge or high bank, overhead from the shooter's position. All the needful places for such shots can be found anywhere in a walk in the country, and generally 66 SHOOTING FOR BOYS in places inaccessible to the heavy standard fixed trap. And, to get the latter 's capacity to fire pigeons from the ground directly in front of the shooter at sixteen yards ' distance, as in trap shoot- ing, all that is needed is some sort of a pit or a rock embankment three feet high, behind which the trap boy squats, firing his clays upon the whistle signal. But before I tell you of our lessons in these steps in the art of wing shooting I must give you some of our tests with a cheaper but efficient hand trap known as the "Ping-pong trap, ' ' in effect a pair of fingers or holder for the clay pigeon bolted on the end of a hickory stick, the clays being thrown by hand, just the way you would sling a potato off a pointed stick. This trap costs but $1.50 and in a subsequent chapter we will give some pointers about it and some com- parisons with the spring style of hand trap. CHAPTEE II CHOOSING A GUN When a boy sets out to buy a shotgun he has two things, nowadays, to bear in mind. The wild game is by no means as abundant now as it was when his father learned how to shoot, and, as the new shotgun game of trapshooting has come into such universal favour, the gun must be adapted to both wing shooting and trapshooting if you are going to get the most sport out of it. Of course if you have lots of money and can own an arsenal, a light brush gun of small gauge, a special trap gun, and a heavy, long-ranger for wildfowl would be your choice, but, as most boys' pocketbooks are limited, it is best to put all your money into one first-class all-around gun ; one that will not handi- cap you at the traps, is not too heavy for brush shooting, and one that shoots a hard and close pattern enough to give a good account of itself in the duck blind. For it is a fact that many a farmer boy has won great trapshooting championships, gotten his limit of ducks every season, and made 67 68 SHOOTING FOR BOYS good on quail and grouse, all with a trap-grade twelve-gauge costing around $30. The qualities to be looked for are, first a dense pattern in the left barrel, putting at least 70 per cent, of the pellets in a 30-inch circle at forty yards, the right somewhat more open, say 60 per cent, for brush work, and second, a straight-stock, from 2y 2 to 2 inch drop at the heel and 1*4 to 1% at the comb. While it is true that a good trap gun will always do well in the field, the reverse is not true, for many a field gun that does well enough wing shooting will hold the user to a limit of about 18 out of 25 clay birds killed at the traps. The reason is generally that the gun is stocked too crookedly; following rifle stocks, where one has all kinds of time to aim, our makers have a ten- dency to put out guns with 3 to 3y 2 inch drop — just right for a rifle but impossible to shoot well with as a shotgun. We are a nation of riflemen, and we therefore demanded the rifle stock that we were accustomed to, and the gunmakers fur- nished it as lots of well-meaning but prejudiced sportsmen insisted upon having it. But the Eng- lish, who get much more bird shooting than we do, have learned better, for they always have a straight stock with no pistol grip (put on pri- marily because of that big drop) and our trap- CHOOSING A GUN 69 shooters soon realised that the English were right about this thing, and now the wing shots are fol- lowing suit all over the country. I have been through the mill on this question personally, and also seen it work out on the other fellows too often to dispute it. I own a beautiful Sauer twelve- gauge, as fine a handmade gun as you ever saw, and I got along well enough with it (with the usual quantity of unaccountable misses) on ducks, quail and grouse; but at the traps I hung around 14 to 18 out of 25 and could not better these scores no matter how well I pointed until I bought a Parker with straight stock, drop 2 1 / 4: inches. My very first score after that was 13 out of 15. One of the best shots in our club (the Asbury Park Gun Club) used to do no better than 8 to 12 out of 25 with his good old field piece until he had it straightened to 2 inch drop, and since then he has been in the twenty-or-better squad. In the field I have bagged six quail out of eight shots with this gun, and the same experience has been duplicated by every wing shot who has tried it. Of course there's a reason behind all this. With a straight stock your cheek becomes auto- matically the rear sight, and you see broad and clear, well above the gun barrel so that you just naturally point the gun instead of aiming it. 70 SHOOTING FOR BOYS With the crooked stock of 3 inch drop, the tendency to shut one eye and aim it like a rifle is irresistible, in fact it is hard to hit anything unless you do sight the gun. Not only is time lost and too much rigidity and pokiness thus acquired as a bad habit, but when you cheek the gun, it never comes twice to your shoulder alike and each time you have to use brain and eye to do a lot of adjusting. "With the straight stock you have only to point the muzzle ; the breech is taken care of by your cheek bone, you see the bird plainly over the barrel and can put your mind entirely upon swinging and judging lead and flight. As to the gun to select, you have two types to choose from — the double gun and the repeater. It takes a good man to work and aim a repeater fast enough to get in more than two good shots, while the third is more or less a gamble. On the whole the double gun nowadays is preferable for all- around work, because you have your two shots quick and the two barrels are bored to give two different patterns, a great advantage over the single barrel which is limited to one pattern. If this is close enough for trap grade work it will be so dense as to blow a bird all to pieces that is too near you, besides making near shots exceedingly difficult because the charge of shot is still so close CHOOSING A GUN 71 together. A good field and trap double should have its left barrel guaranteed to put 70 per cent, of the pellets of a load inside a thirty-inch circle at 40 yards, and its right barrel should be bored to give 60 per cent, pattern if you are going to use it for brush shooting for grouse, or 65 per cent, if your principal upland shooting will be for quail. With such a gun you use your left exclusively at the traps ; give 'em the right for jumping quail or grouse, or ducks hovering over the decoys; and reach out with that tight old left for your second shot at upland birds or ducks passing at long range or digging away from the decoys as fast as their wings can carry them. That "trap" left on my Parker once reached out and grabbed a quail which had gotten by two guns of my Southern entertainers and was dusting off through a little opening between two long-leaf southern pines. He thought he was through for the day but I took a long chance with the full choked left and tumbled him over at 70 paces — which shot they still talk about down North Carolina way! A good double by Parker, Ithaca, Smith, Le- f ever, Fox, etc., will stand you from $25 to $37.50, and, as they are kept in stock of drops from 2 inches to 3% inches and stock lengths of 13% to 14% inches, any bore specified, one can pretty 72 SHOOTING FOR BOYS nearly order a gun by mail. I would however go to considerable trouble and expense to get to some large city where a number of guns are kept in stock so as to try them out personally, for if a gun does not fit you exactly it's all off as far as crack scores are concerned, no matter how hard you practise. First, it should hang well and bal- ance nicely in your hands ; second, it should come to shoulder instantaneously and without requiring any adjustment whatever subsequently on your part. Shut your eyes and throw the gun to aim, pointing at some object which you had in mind when you closed your eyes. Now open them ; your right eye will be looking directly down the barrel and somewhat over it if the gun fits you. If your eye appears to be more than a quarter inch over the barrel it needs more drop ; if you seem to be below the breech or too far down, the stock is too crooked for you, try another with a straighter stock. In the matter of stock length the trap and field guns are irreconcilable. The trap length will be too long for quick work in the field, not less than 14% inches, while, for boys, a field length of 14 or even 13% is essential unless the heel is to catch in your armpit every time you lay the piece. A good way out of the dilemma is to get the length that just fits you for quick work afield and then o 3 g p ^ 3 > « W r+ OB ® ^ < M K5 DRAWINGS . 3k!+B._SHELTER TENT FOR THREE Boys. THE HUNTING CAMP 209 wall a foot up from the ground, three along back of tent and three along the front upper edge. These brass grommets can be bought at any hard- ware store and turned over with a nail, finishing with a blow of a hammer. Fasten short tapes in each grommet hole, and, along the bottom of the mosquito blind, sew tape ties about every foot and a half. So finished, it is a dandy little tent, but it needs an extra side to snap on in the direction of rain in case a driving storm comes up. Most storms in the woods will not bother you, but a driving thunder shower requires a side piece. Make it of white galatea, 2% yards, cut diagonally and sew together, the diagonal being cut across from the upper corner to a point one foot up from the lower corner. Hem and finish by sewing on snap but- tons every six inches. These you get at the notion counter in any dry goods store, 4 cents a card of twelve. Sew the male half of the button on the side of galatea, and the females along both sides of the roof. You will need twice as many females as males, for the same piece of cloth will answer for either side of the tent, depending upon which way the wind is driving. To put up this tent, cut two short stakes about two feet long and drive in where the back of the 210 CAMPING FOR BOYS tent is to come. Fasten the lower tent tapes to the feet of these stakes and tie the upper rear tent tapes a foot up these same stakes. Cut two five- foot poles and drive them in the ground where the front of the tent will come, 6 feet 3 inches from the rear stakes and square to them. Tie bottom tapes of mosquito blind to the feet of these poles, tie upper front roof tapes to the tops of same poles, guy out taut with some light tent rope, and the job is done. Takes about fifteen minutes. Finish by staking down the mosquito blind sides, where there are tape ties and securing the front mosquito flap with a large flat stone which holds the edges close together yet permits going in or out by simply lifting the stone. When you turn in for the night, take the stone in with you and secure by pinning fast the front inside with the stone. Koll out the three sleeping bags in a row, make a pillow of your spare clothes, and turn in. It will be the healthiest sleep you ever had ! The third important article of a camping outfit is the cook kit. As I said in our last chapter there are a number of light dandy ones to be bought for from $1.50 to $2 — but suppos'n' you haven't got the coin! Well, that's nothing to worry about! Go down to the five and ten cent store and look over the aluminum counter. Two bowls and two THE HUNTING CAMP 211 fry pans will be all you need in that metal (and it may be well to put in here that the reason that aluminum is so prized by campers is not only be- cause of its lightness but because it has three times the conductivity of iron and so will not scorch and burn things anywhere near so easily). These will cost forty cents, and to go with them you want a ten cent enamelled ware cup, a four cent shallow mixing tin about seven inches across, and three 2 cent 7 inch pie plates for covers for your pots and for eating plates. That is all you really need, to bake, fry and boil all you want to in the woods. Add to it sometime later a fifty cent canvas water bucket from the sporting goods store to put all your things in, and you have a dandy little cook kit that will weigh not over two pounds and cost about a dollar. To make your fry pans stowable, cut off the handles with a hack saw about an inch from the side, drill a hole through both stub and cut-off handle, get a short bolt with wing nut at the hardware store and you have a way to put the handle back on again whenever you want it. Aluminum, being such a very good conductor of heat, makes the handle of a fry pan a sizzling hot affair, so that a stick of wood lashed to it in camp will save many blisters. Also, buy a pair of ten cent brown cotton cooking gloves. They are fine 212 CAMPING FOR BOYS in the woods, not only for cooking but to wear when paddling or when the mosquitoes are bad; and get a new pair every camp. You have now the essentials for a real hunting or fishing camp. The accessories,- described in a former chapter, will comprise a 75 cent belt axe, a knife, compass, electric flasher, candle, and ditty bag to hold them. To carry food, send to some big sporting goods store for a yard of paraffined muslin, costing 20 cents, and have your mother make up from it as many 4x9 inch and 3x6 inch bags as there is material. Simply fold flat and seam three sides and then turn inside out. If you have a rubber stamp set (and most boys do !) mark the 4x9's, flour, pancakes, rice, and sugar; and mark the 3x6's, coffee, cornmeal, tea, codfish, salt, cocoa, raisins, and cheese. Save all the used sugar bags that the kitchen gets for to stow po- tatoes, onions, prunes and apricots in, and save all the old baking powder tins for stowage of pork, bacon, butter and baking powder. Milk comes in its own can — the smallest tin of evaporated cream. Punch with two nail holes when you get into camp and plug up with small toothpicks. Eleven pounds of provisions ought to be enough to last two boys five days in any kind of fish and game country. For the essential egg, take either egg powder THE HUNTING CAMP 213 bought from the sporting goods stores or take along your eggs packed in the flour in a large fric- tion top tin, or else broken into a small friction top 3 inch diameter by 5 inch can, which will hold four- teen. With this outfit, when the frosty weather comes on and the fish begin to bite again and the game laws go off, you can pick out a chum or two and take this outfit into the mountains five to eight miles from the nearest railroad station with no fear of freezing at night or running short of good wholesome food. Fill the bags with a pound each of the larger commodities and assemble all the dingbats in one pile in your room. Spread out the tent with its mosquito blind folded inboard; fold up your sleeping bag into a flat parcel in the centre of the tent. Pile the other goods neatly on it. Then fold the tent over them like a big sheet of wrapping paper, first, however, laying your tump strap across the centre of the pile and then rolling the pack around it. The ends of the tent are tucked over, leading out the tump strap ahead of the folds, and next the whole bundle is secured with the tent rope of which you will want about ten feet of % inch braided. Now adjust the tump straps to the forehead band so that the pack rides easily a little below your shoulders. The pack 214 CAMPING FOR BOYS should not weigh over twenty pounds all told, and you can tump it ^ve or ten miles through forest trails and old lumber roads with ease. The regular Indian tump line has the broad central strap about 18 inches long and two long thongs about 8 feet each. These are laid side by side on the tent or pack cloth, about a foot or more inside the cloth so as to cross the two ends of your pile of duffle. The cloth is then folded in over the tump lines and the pile of duffle made up. Draw- ing in on the tump lines puckers up each end of the pack cloth over the pile and the outside ends of the tump line are then crossed and tied around the pack. A word about how to make this tump strap. Get a nice piece of soft leather from your shoe- maker, iy 2 inches wide by 18 inches long. Buy two one-inch buckles at the hardware store; neck down the ends of your leather band so as to se- cure on the buckles with a tongue hole and a rivet. Buy an inch strap a yard long for 25 cents, cut off the buckle and punch six holes in that end. It al- ready has a set of holes in the other end and it then forms your tump strap, which you pass through your pack and adjust to the right length by the buckles on your forehead band. Or, substi- tute for this short strap through your pack two THE AUTHORS "PERFECT SHELTER TENT This is the tent described in this chapter; sleeps three, weighs 3 lbs.; easily put up, with two long peg's and two short poles, in less than ten minutes. A fine tent for a boy's hunting or fishing trip. --'W. OFF FOR A WEEK'S CAMP The author with his children and a friend. All tents, sleeping bags, cook kits and provisions for a week's camp are in the various packs carried by the party. . THE HUNTING CAMP 215 long 8-foot thongs of rawhide or braided rope and make up the pack Indian fashion as described above. It is the easiest way to carry a pack, once your neck gets used to the unaccustomed strain, or, if you are naturally thin-necked and prefer shoulder straps, you can make up a shoulder strap harness out of five cent school book straps and two large leather bands. The point of this entire outfit is that it is light and cheap, and no part of it is useless weight in camp. If the tent is dyed brown with Diamond Dye or the whole parcel wrapped in your rain coat or poncho it will make a more presentable package for the train and railroad station. Next, get your tickets (some early morning train, so as not to get there too late in the eve- ning) ; get off at the little jumping-off station, and melt into the forest for a week's good sport ! CHAPTER IV CAMP COOKERY While with a big hike, consisting of twenty boys and their leaders, the accepted plan is for each boy to cook his own rations as dealt out ; on a hunting and fishing camp for three or four boys it is much the best organisation to elect the boy best fitted for the job as cook, with the next best as assistant cook. The other two attend to firewood and water, cleaning up the camp, airing the blankets morn- ings and washing the dishes after the meal is over. The cook and his assistant set the table, prepare the food, cook it, and help eat it, after which their work is done and the others take hold. The cook and his assistant should not be required to get fire- wood or water, both should be at hand in generous quantities, for no meal can be well done with insuf- ficient fuel, nor can the cook leave his job for a single instant to rustle firewood or water. The other two attend to all this, also the night fire and the browse for bedding. It makes an equal divi- sion of work, and some boys are temperamentally 216 CAMP COOKERY 217 better fitted for axemanship and such muscular jobs while others have in them the making of a first class chemist, which is what a good cook is in es- sence. Here is a good grub list for three boys for one week: 2 pounds bacon, 2 pounds pork, 2 pounds rice, 5 pounds sugar, 1 pound raisins, 1 box choco- late or cocoa, 1 pound butter, % pound coffee, 3 cans evaporated cream (small size), 2 dozen beef capsules, 4 pounds flour, 1 pound cornmeal, 2 pounds pancake flour, 2 pounds prunes, 2 pounds apricots, 2 pounds peaches dried, 1 pound cheese, % pound baking powder, y 2 pound salt, 2 pounds side of codfish, 1 quart white onions, 1 quart potatoes, % pound tea, % pound lard, 1 dozen eggs, 1 dozen beef capsules, total, 30 pounds or ten pounds to each boy. This list supposes that you are going to catch fish and shoot game for meat or go hungry, that is not starve, but have to live on bacon and codfish eked out with stews in which the meat element is fur- nished by the beef capsules. These things will all come from the grocer's in a great box, and most of them have paper packages or boxes that add considerably to their weight. First of all transfer everything to all the food bags you can muster; use the paraffined bags for the flours, 218 CAMPING FOR BOYS sugar, coffee, etc., which water can hurt, and stow the vegetables, dried fruits and the like in your muslin bags. Put the pork, butter, etc., in cans and stow the eggs in a large can with part of your flour around them. Another way is to get a friction top can about five inches high by three inches in diameter and break all the eggs into it. Such a can will hold fourteen eggs and most of the yolks will stay whole even after six or seven miles of hike. The night before the expedition, the clan gets to- gether and makes up the packs, distributing the provisions according to the carrying capacity of each boy. One takes the tent, the other the cook kit and the third an equivalent amount of pro- visions over and above the third portion. No pack should then go over twenty-two pounds. My own son, who is 11 years old and a husky brute at that, carries a twenty pound pack over the mountain trails all day without any great effort. Starting out from the jumping-off place, the first thing to do is to quit fighting your pack. It is a burden, but if there are no sharp corners nor can edges in it, just get used to it and you will soon forget that it is there. There is no use fussing and fidgetting with it, that will tire you out in no time and do no good whatever. Once well on the CAMP COOKERY 219 trail there will be so much to see and do that there will be no thoughts left to expend on your pack. Try to follow old lumber roads and trails in your route through the forest; breaking through straight brush is exhausting and slow even with- out a pack, while with it it is mighty hard. Your objective is a little forest lake where there are bass, and wild ducks, with plenty of partridges in the woods, and it is four miles off through the woods and over a mountain or two from the rail- road station. You hike along, the leading boy with ready shotgun and (while on the subject of fire- arms, take but one gun each, no extra rifles or pistols allowed, make one gun do for all game chances, which a shotgun will). These old lumber trails are fair places for grouse— and we are on the lookout for supper! After about two hours hiking, walking twenty-five minutes and resting iive in each half hour, we make out the white shimmer of the lake under the forest trees, downhill. We pitch down through the brush regardless, for we must reach the bank quickly so as to skirt it on the lookout for a spring and a camp site. Choose a spot out on a point if pos- sible, for there is more breeze in such places and fewer mosquitoes. Now the packs are opened and all provisions turned over to the cooks while the 220 CAMPING FOR BOYS third boy gets stakes and poles for the tent. It is unrolled and put up by him and the assistant cook, while Cookie assembles the war bags, puts up a pole to hang them over in pairs, makes a stone shelf for his pots, pans and cans and clears a cook fire site some twenty feet to leeward of the tent. Assistant Cook is sent to the spring with the can- vas bucket for fresh water, while the tent man brings in a quantity of firewood for the cook fire and piles it near the cook fire site. Then he goes after browse and the clearing away of roots and stubs from the tent floor, while Cookie looks over his layout. Let's see; we had no luck at partridges on the way in, for Bony missed the only grouse that got up. That 's what we brought along that steak for, to tide over the first gap before guns and rods get in their fine work. It is five o'clock and the sun is going down. Assistant cook cuts a springy sap- ling about ten feet long and this they drive down slantindiginally into the ground with a couple of low forks to hold it up and the long end of it sticking out over the cook fire site. This is called the "dingle stick' ' in the North and a good cook fire pot pole it makes, too! Assistant cook next cuts a couple of pot hangers out of maple bush; just a twig with a stub sticking out at its upper CAMP COOKERY 221 end and a notch cut with a jackknife at the lower end to take the bale of a kettle. Assuming that Cookie has with him the cook kit described in our last chapter, he takes the two aluminum pots and starts a "mulligan" in one of them while rice is doing in the other. Eice swells enormously when cooking and is sure to burn unless it has plenty of water. Three small grabs out of the warbag are plenty and the pot is filled nearly full of water, a pinch of salt added, and the rice stirred in when it is boiling furiously. In half an hour it will be done, when the rice water is poured off for soup stock or added to the mulligan, and the rice steamed a few minutes over the fire before serving. Cookie hangs this over the cook fire which assist- ant cook has started under the dingle stick, and next fills the other pot, puts in some salt, chops up half a pound of the steak into cubes, slices in two onions, and cubes in three smallish potatoes which assistant cook has been paring. This goes on the dingle stick ahead of the rice and the fire is or- ganised between two short logs so that the rice gets the bulk of the fire after the first big blaze has burnt down. Tin covers ought to go on both pots, not only because they will come to a boil quickly that way but will keep boiling even if the coals are low. 222 CAMPING FOR BOYS Cookie now starts his cornbread batter. One cup flour, one-half cup cornmeal, half teaspoonful salt, one tablespoonful sugar, two teaspoonfuls baking powder, mix all together in mixing pan. Add one egg and some milk water from evaporated "cow" can, and finally a teaspoonful of melted butter. Stir all together. Assistant cook has been greasing one fry pan meanwhile, and now you pour the batter out into it. It should be just thick enough to pour slowly with the help of a spoon; if too thin the cake will not come up. Over the fire with it, out on the ends of the logs with a bed of coals raked under. The second fry pan is put over it and a lot of brands stolen from the fire heaped up on it and blown to a separate fire. Watch that cake carefully for it is easy to burn it. Keep the coals under it free from flame and lift off the upper pan occasionally to see how it is get- ting on. The upper fire seldom burns it, and can be kept going merrily. Assistant cook meanwhile has cleaned out the mixing pan and you fill it with mixed prunes, apri- cots, and peaches ; add two tablespoonf uls of sugar and a little water and set it to simmering some- where on the back of the fire. Meanwhile see that the two pots are boiling steadily and stir them occasionally. By the time the cake is done and THE BOY SCOUT COOK KIT As furnished by the N. Y. Sporting Goods Co cover, mixing pan, plate, cup, knife tins and paper containers boy kit Fry pan, stew pan with fork and two spoons. Also note with tin top, for small provisions. A one- THE STOPPLE COOK KIT Two steel fry pans, which also make a fine bake oven, a quart pail, two large pint cups and wire grate; weight, 2 lbs. Whole kit goes in long pail and will fit in your pocket. There is room for forks, spoons, etc., besides the grate and all the detachable handles, inside the fry pan. A two-boy kit. THE FORESTER COOK KIT Two gallon aluminum pots, one 3-qt. pail, 2 mixing baking pans, 3 cover plates, aluminum 9-inch plate, for four boys, each bringing along his own table set. pans, fry pan, 3 and cup. A kit CAMP COOKERY 223 set aside, it is time to set table and call the third boy off his browse job. The Big Ceremony now takes place — tasting the mulligan ! A spoonful of it is scooped out and blown cool, while cookie and assistant cook each take a solemn sip. Judgment is pronounced, and the same is done to the rice. If "Can't be beat!" pour out rice water and extra mulligan water into a container and add three beef capsules for soup. In a few minutes you announce soup and cornbread, set out the butter, serve the rice and mulligan on the plates and set water to boil in both pots again, one to use for washing water and the other to draw tea as soon as it comes to a boil. By the time the soup is down, the rice and mulli- gan have cooled enough to "go at with a long pole," and the tea water has come to a boil. Add three pinches of tea, set aside four minutes to steep and clean the cups for tea. It is ready to pour in four minutes. Add evaporated "cow" to taste, pass around the sugar bag and "hop to it." After it and the rice and mulligan have disap- peared, bring on the fruit stew, by the end of which every one is full to the brim and that camp will sleep like a major! The sun has set, and if Third Boy has been busy the Camp Fire is ready to touch off. Cookie and assistant cook attend to 224 CAMPING FOR BOYS this duty while all hands wash up. Then there is casting for bass by night, f rogging, browse picking and sleeping bags to look to before turning in. Cookie ties all the food bags in pairs and hangs them over his pole, sees that all cans are closed and all covers on, throws a tarp over the outfit and is then sure that rain, squirrels, porcupines and such small marauders will not steal any food dur- ing the night. The remains of the firewood are put on the camp fire and all hands turn in for an early start next morning, for daybreak is the time to hunt and fish. Never chop wood at night ; it is as much as your life is worth. Next morning Cookie is up betimes; do not let the crowd get out without a substantial meal. Pot No. One boils coffee ; one grab of grounds to each boy, let boil iive minutes and then simmer un- til wanted. Get out the bacon can and fry two slices for each boy. They should go over a hot fire and be taken out and put in a covered container as soon as they show translucent on both sides. Do not overdo or they will be just dry chips. If fish were caught the night before, have assistant chef cleaning them while this is going on. With the bacon fat still red hot put in two fish side by side, head to tail in one fry pan, first pouring off CAMP COOKERY 225 a little bacon fat in a cup for pancakes, and mak- ing up with a hunk of lard out of the lard can. Never put fish in cold fat. Put a tin cover over the fish and keep assistant cook maintaining a small even fire under them. Meanwhile get out the mixing pan and the pancake flour, add enough milk water to make a batter that will just pour off the spoon and you are ready for flapjacks. Pour all your bacon grease in the cup into the second fry pan, let get sputtering hot over the fire, pour all back that will drip and then pour on enough batter to fill the bottom of the pan. Hold over hot fire, raising the edges occasionally with your hunting knife and giving a shake to keep from sticking to pan. Then — one, two, THREE ! and over she goes ! Most boys are afraid to flop high enough, with the result that the cake lands on the side of the pan, not having a chance to make a complete flip. However, six of these are enough ; have on some peaches stewing in the second pot and serve breakfast; coffee, bacon, fish, flapjacks and fruit. Oatmeal is too mussy about camp; corn mush is better, but the above is plenty grub enough. The whole party goes out hunting and fishing forthwith, letting dishes and bedding to take care of itself. There will be plenty of time later when 226 CAMPING FOR BOYS the sun is up high, around eleven o'clock. Along about eleven they all straggle in, hungry, of course. For a midday lunch, chocolate, cheese, raisins and broiled birds are ample. Put on one pot to boil, stir up a teaspoonful of chocolate to each boy in a cup with cold water, stir into the boiling water, add milk and sugar to taste, and let boil for twenty minutes. Two grouse are enough for the whole outfit. Clean and broil before fire on sassafras fork with a strip of bacon skewered to the bird in- side. His own fat will do outside. For bread- stuff you will want biscuits or squaw bread. They are both made of the same ingredients. One cup of flour, one-half teaspoonful salt, one heaping teaspoonful baking powder, one lump of lard or butter as big as your thumb. Work latter thor- oughly into flour with hands, add milk water little by little stirring the dough with a spoon (never with the hands for they are too warm) until the whole mass is a lively lump of biscuit dough. Press or roll out flat on a plate, tip into fry pan and set over fire. To make biscuits, cut up with the baking powder can top and set in floured fry pan, putting the other over it and building a fire of brands on top; to make squaw bread, put in floured fry pan, hold over fire a few minutes until the bottom has a firm crust and the cake has begun CAMP COOKERY 227 to rise, then tip up fry pan with a stick through hole in its handle, build up a high-flaming quick fire in front and watch her rise and brown on top ! This meal brings the cook around to supper again. For variations serve creamed codfish, made by boiling shredded up pieces off the steak in three waters to get out the salt, pour off third water and add a thumb of butter, some "cow" and a pinch of flour, stir thoroughly while cooking and serve hot. Always welcome, in a meat and fish diet. Never omit the mulligan, making it some- times of bird or rabbit chunks, other times with the beef capsules alone, always having the onion and potato present for that is what they were brought along for. For variation in fruit, try "speckled pup," which is just raisins cooked in rice ; also oc- casionally serve the prunes "as is," the idea being to cut down the midday cooking as much as pos- sible. In fact, to do good hunting you ought to range far and wide and take along a midday lunch in your pocket, cooking enough extra to provide for it at either breakfast or supper. Woods lore allows but two meals a day, indeed the Indians hold that no man can remain sound and healthy in mind and body and eat three times each sun. Once in a while serve eggs and bacon for breakfast, first mak- ing sure that you have eggs enough for cornmeal. 228 CAMPING FOR BOYS In a week's camp a dozen eggs will give enough for one go of bacon and eggs and the rest will be saved for corn bread. About the third day out you will not want but two meals a day, and begin to see that the Indian was right, for his country and mode of life. CHAPTER V ALL. ABOUT THE DIFFERENT TENTS Why is it that when you pick up any sporting goods catalogue, you find more than a dozen differ- ent kinds of tents? Why isn't the army wall tent the best if the Army uses it, and why, then, all these other kinds? This question strikes every boy's mind as he glances through pages and pages of tents in all sizes and weights and kinds — why not one army tent of a variety of sizes and weights and let the rest go ? The question gets more acute still when he starts in to buy one, for of course he wants the best tent for his money, and he can afford but one. For a boy the answer depends upon the country he lives in, and a knowledge of just why each kind of tent was invented or developed will help him more in deciding than any other information he could have. I myself have invented no less than three different kinds of tents, the first of which, the Forester, has become famous, and is to be found in every sporting goods catalogue put out by the large outfitters. Yet I own three others 229 230 CAMPING FOR BOYS and use them all at one time or another. That is because I range so far and camp in so many dif- ferent parts of our big country. For, the same tent that is ideal in the Eastern woods is not just the best for a canoe trip down some Canadian river, nor yet for a pack-and- saddle trip in the Eockies, nor yet in the deserts and mesas of the Southwest, nor yet again in the sand dunes of the Atlantic seaboard. True, any tent not too large or heavy will answer in all these countries, and there are a few models which nearly fit them all, but there is no one best bet that will beat all the rest for all of these countries. For boys the first consideration is lightness. If you make it yourself of department store duck, the cloth will weigh about half a pound to the yard, so that a very few yards will run into a lot of weight. If you send to a large outfitting store and buy one of their patent waterproof tent cloths you will have to pay considerable for it, some forty cents a yard, so again the fewer yards the better. Again a tent is an indivisible load, so that for a large party of boys, one big enough to house them all is going to make a big burden for some one, and it is better to take along two or three small tents, each sheltering three or four boys, and no tent weigh- ing over eight pounds. THE DIFFERENT TENTS 231 To begin with the wall and A-tents : These are of the closed tent type, that is, even with a fire in front their walls are at such an angle to the fire that they reflect no heat inside, and the tents are damp and cold in wet moist woods, near river banks, etc. For sand camping where no moisture exudes from the soil at night, and for mountain work where a dry site can be found with no deep forest duff underneath, they make a good type, because on both seashore and mountain the wind is forever blowing strongly and you must keep it out or get chilled down. For snow work it is also very good, particularly if there is room at one end for a light sheetiron tent stove which can be slipped over your cook kit. Many is the night I have slept in one, with the blizzard roaring out- side and the snow settling in tons on the roof, while inside all was cheerfulness and warmth as the little tent stove gave out a ruddy glow and the carbide lamps lit up the interior. Many's the night I have slept in them to the rumbling accom- paniment of the surf, while the wind whistled and howled across the sandy beach and the hum of mosquitoes pitched a high keynote just outside the gauze door front ! The Snow tent, is a modern modification of the wall tent which cuts off superfluous canvas and 232 CAMPING FOR BOYS provides a reflecting rear wall. It is, so far as I know, the invention of David T. Abercrombie the well-known outfitter. If you shear off the rear roof of a wall tent from a point on the ridge about two feet back from the front peak down to the back wall, and replace this canvas with a flat triangle of canvas you will have saved a lot of roof cloth and improved the tent both in weight and in heat-re- flecting properties, and you have made a Snow Tent of it. For all small sizes, sleeping three or four boys, it can do everything the wall tent can, is lighter and warmer. You do not need any height at the back of a small tent, that is where your head goes when sleeping, and you use the front for standing-up room. Another closed tent, very popular in the West, is the Spike or Miner 's tent. It is a small pyramid of canvas, with very sharp slant; only needs one pole inside to put up, stands any amount of wind, and where a dry site can be found is a light good tent for three or four boys. Its only standing room is, however, under the peak so that it is a trifle crowded for more than one at a time to dress in. But, in the Eastern and Northern woods, where the forest damp is sure to arise like a mist at night from the soil, you want an open tent with a camp THE DIFFERENT TENTS 233 fire in front. A closed tent gets damp, and every- thing in it wilts from the mere exudation of mist from the layers and layers of mouldy wet leaves under the very floor of the tent, and if you take a ground cloth to keep this down, you have at once added materially to the weight to be carried. And so we get the Baker and leanto tents, so much used in the North Woods and Canada. For four boys, or three, they are about right. Put up with a rope stretched between two trees, or a pole nailed across two trees and the upper rear corners guyed out to pegs, you build a fine backlog fire in front, com- pletely drying out the duff underneath and warm- ing everything and everybody in the tent. The roof reflects the heat rays down on the floor of the tent, and so long as an ember yet glows its rays will continue to reflect down from the tent roof upon the sleeping boys below. A small rain flap or verandah guyed out in front keeps out driving rain and yet does not require the fire to be too far away. Altogether this tent is one of the best for woods camping for a party of three or four boys. In the larger sizes it loses a good many of its de- sirable qualities and requires too large a fire for the energies of a parcel of boys. It must not be over seven feet deep, for the heat intensity of the campfire varies as the square of the distance, and 234 CAMPING FOR BOYS even nine feet of depth will give you only 4 %i of the heat of the seven foot shanty tent. The Per- fect Shelter Tent, described in Chapter II, is one of the best modifications of the shanty tent. Coming next to my Forester Tent, we have one ideal for two boys. It is notably the warmest tent made, for all its angles reflect fire heat; it has a big floor space for its weight, a triangle 8 feet in a side for 4% pounds weight, and two of them make not only an excellent camp for four boys with the same camp-fire heating both tents, but a pole can be put between the two and a "tarp" stretched over it, pegging down along the bottom and mak- ing a long lodge of the two tents and tarp that will accommodate eight boys on about 10 pounds of weight. It is hard to describe the appearance of the Forester tent in words, the illustrations tell something of how it looks, and the patterns and directions for making it may be found in the "Boy Scouts' Handbook." It must have the hood fea- ture in front to keep out driving rains and yet let in the fire heat. The Forester requires three poles to set up. They are easy to find in almost any thicket, but in canoe trips where one picks out a site as the sun is setting and gets right at the cooking of the eve- ning meal, the tent should be the simplest possible AX ENCAMPMENT OF THE CAMP FIRE CLUB The tent in the foreground is a canoe tent. THE WESTERN MINERS TENT An excellent model in windy, mountainous countries. THE DIFFERENT TENTS 235 thing to erect. To this end we get two types of canoe tent, the Hudson's Bay and the Canoe types. Both are erected with a rope to which the ridge is tied, or the Canoe type when made without ridge needs but a single short pole which may even be one of the canoe paddles. If no trees are avail- able on the stream bank, cut two shears or short poles, straight or crooked, and run the ridge rope over them ; pegging down to ground. Rope is al- ways available on a canoe cruise, for you must have one for a tow rope, and most river points that are free from mosquitoes are windy, and so the Indians and trappers of the North devised the Hudson's Bay tent. It is an A tent with rounded ends. The ends are not only to give more room — they do, lots of it, where it is most needed to pile your duffle in while the sleeping bags, side by side, take up the main floor of the tent — but, further than this, these rounded ends give an end strain to both ends of the tent so that it cannot tumble over once the ridge is up, even if you only use a club and a pair of shears instead of a rope. Such a tent will stand a blizzard, a gale, a thunder squall with equal ease and, with the flaps thrown back and a fire out in front, will warm up after a fashion from the fire heat while you are preparing the evening meal. A modification of this tent which I 286 CAMPING FOR BOYS published in Field and Stream two years ago and dubbed the "Blizzard Tent" is, in effect, a Hud- son's Bay with triangle ends instead of the rounded ones, and, for small sizes, such as 6 x 5 feet main floor space with three foot triangular ends, a single peg at the peak of each triangle or eight in all suffice whereas the regular Hudson's Bay requires from 12 to 22 pegs. The Canoe Tent retains the rounded front of the Hudson's Bay, but is considerably altered at the rear. It is meant to do away with the crowded interior space of the latter tent and will sleep three or four comfortably. To get this room the rear wall is made from iy% to 2 feet high and 7 to 8% feet wide and held up by long stakes to which the upper edge of the wall is tied, while the bottom uses the same stakes as ground ties. From this wall the sides of the tent stretch out to the peak and front pegs in flat triangles so that there is plenty of sleeping room and reason- able space near the front pole to stand up and dress. A final tent, and one that every boy should know well, is the Indian teepee. They are not hard to make, and, for a permanent camp or one where quite a party of boys, say eight or ten, ex- pect to reach the site by team or boat, they make THE DIFFERENT TENTS 237 a great tent. The two big difficulties with a teepee are rinding enough straight poles for it, and keep- ing mosquitoes out of it in summer. Most camp- er's tents provide for protection against two things, rain and mosquitoes. If they do not do that they are not tents at all, no matter whether compact or light, or handy to stand up in or have any other feature of excellence. But, for a crowd of boys who like to do things Indian fashion, to emulate all the finer qualities that ennobled the Red Man at his best, a teepee is the starting point for all the club activities. To make one covering a ten foot circle and sleeping eight to ten boys, get 26 yards of 8 ounce duck canvas and sew up to form a rectangle 21 feet by 10 feet. Cut out a semicircle of 10 feet radius out of this canvas and make the smoke flaps, door, etc., out of what is left over. The smoke flaps are 5 feet on the outer edge and four on the edge sewed to the body of the teepee, the upper edge of the flaps 2 feet long and the lower edge 1 foot. A strip 8 inches wide should be gotten out of the left-over canvas and sewed to the upper side of one edge of the teepee so as to form a flap with the lacing peg holes. Cut out a semicircle with 1 foot radius from the upper peak of the teepee, hem all around and work in eyelets enough for twelve pegs, and the teepee is 238 CAMPING FOR BOYS ready for dyeing and waterproofing. Use the lime-alum solution described in Chap. II and dye red, yellow, or brown to taste. An ornamental border is next painted along the bottom of the teepee cloth and the totems of the band put on. The main border is reserved for decorations commemorating the various camps of the tribe. Such a teepee will weigh 14 pounds and cost $5 for materials. Once in possession of it your tribe can make stick beds, a teepee flap for the door, a hood to go over the pole top, stick back rests, ornamental birch teepee pegs and lacing pegs, and decorate the interior with skins and rugs and be as Indian as you wish. It is a very prac- tical tent for cold weather camping; for sum- mer it had better be pitched where the mosquitoes are not too thick, or some of them will find their way in via the top. However, with a fire going inside, even if only a small smudge, this mode of entrance is not likely to be patronised. I have had great times inside of many teepees, some of them real Indian ones. With the teepee fire go- ing one can cook, and hold council, and do all kinds of woodcraft work, tell stories and gen- erally live in the forest much more comfortably than with any form of white man's tent, most of which are merely sleeping spaces, whereas the In- THE DIFFERENT TENTS 239 dian's lodge is his home. Here he is out of the wind and dew and cold and insects, here he can throw off the outer garments of the trail and be at ease, here he can work and live and prepare food in peace, and most boys who have tried the teepee, are agreed that it is the greatest of tents — once they have learnt how to manage the fire. For the white man is prone to get too big a fire. A little one, of real dry woods giving out heat, not smoke, is the Indian's way. The white man piles on sticks, wet, damp and dry until a huge smudge and a thicket of flames is under way. It is far more than the smoke flaps can handle and the teepee immediately fills with smoke until no one can stay in it without crying eyes. The In- dian builds a small bright, hot fire of perfectly dry sticks with the damp and dubious ones to one side, which latter are not fed on until dry. A few short thick billets are reserved for the night fire. After grub is through and the council ended, a bed of hot coals is left and on these are placed the two short six inch thick billets. These smoul- der and char for hours and when they are partly done two more are started above them. The last of their embers will be alive by sunup, and mean- while the teepee has had the chill and dampness off it all through the sleeping hours of the night, 240 CAMPING FOR BOYS and its temperature is considerably above that of the outside forest. In selecting your tent, think over the kind of country you will camp in most, your facilities for getting there, the prevailing wind and weather, the insect life and then pick out the tent which best suits your style of camping. For a perma- nent camp where you go in and stay in one spot for two to four weeks, a teepee will be hard to beat if you can cut poles for it, a wall tent if straight poles are scarce. For a canoe trip, the Hudson's Bay and Forester give two tents that have been eminently successful in that kind of service, and, for back pack trips into the moun- tains choose shelter tent or Forester depending upon the number to go. For sand and snow work a spike or canoe tent closed, or for a large party a wall tent with a tent stove is your solution, and for camping in dry countries no tent at all is the big idea — just a tarp to throw over your face and sleeping bags. CHAPTER VI CAMP FIRES The camp fire is the one thing that boys are prone to be most careless about. It is the sign of the tenderfoot — that huddle of sticks and twigs laid on any old way and requiring one or more boys to be forever feeding to make it give any flame at all. But, when the Old Scout builds one, you notice that he does the job once for all, gets a fine strong fire the first thing, does not seem to have to tend it at all, and didn't apparently lose any time or labour in making it. There is a whole lot of knowledge that went back of his seemingly smooth and easy perform- ance. What woods to use and what to reject, how to start and build up the fire, how to arrange its structure for the purpose intended, how to get the most out of every billet of wood put on the fire — all this know-how was what saved his back and his arms and his axe edge, while you — well, you remember that last fire, how it took forever to get going, went out the minute your back was 241 242 CAMPING FOR BOYS turned and seemed to use up a forest of wood to keep alive ! In the first place the Old Scout knew what he wanted that fire for. If it was for the general camp fire for heating the tents, he built it with a backstop of a big flat rock or a five-high back of logs laid one above the other against two lean- ing stakes. He did not propose to lose half his heat and light by letting it radiate out into the forest but rather built this backstop to throw that heat and light back into the tents where it was needed. If he wanted a cook fire he avoided any- thing that would grow into a conflagration, and confined it with logs or stones so that there would be something to rest pots and pans on and confine the heat under their bottoms. If he wanted light alone he built a tiny beehive crib of small sticks so that each stick would get all the air it needed to make a bright flame and not become a live coal too soon. If he was using a reflector baker he built a high back of small logs slipped between pairs of upright stakes and laid his sticks upright against them so as to get a high hot quick flame soon done — but so also would be the biscuits. Finally, if he had to build his fire on deep snow, he laid a groundwork of small logs on the snow and built up his fire on them, so that the embers CAMP FIRES 243 would not melt the snow and sink down putting his fire out for lack of body. Maybe you watched the Old Scout start a fire, and noticed hew he used scraps of dry leaves and twigs scraped up out of the forest duff if the woods were dry, but if they were damp or wet he left them alone and instead broke off a few dry sticks from the under branches of the nearest soft- wood tree and then took out his jack-knife and whittled a little Christmas tree of shaving, leaving each set on its twig and sticking three or four of them in the ground close together. Then he un- rolled his matches from a covering of paper birch, tore off a piece of birch bark from the roll and lit it with ONE match. And, how that little piece of bark did sputter and flame like a wax candle ! and how quickly the little trees of shavings caught, even though it was raining, and how the wigwam of split sticks that the Old Scout built over his burning treelets did burst into flame ! And then, you noticed that before he did any of this he had his pile of wood, enough for a sub- stantial fire, already at his elbow so that he didn't have to leave it an instant until he had a roaring fire. And, if you knew something about the for- est trees and were curious, you would see that most of his first logs were birch, white or yellow 244 CAMPING FOR BOYS (the gas oil of which " blows its own fire," as the woodmen say) and there was a lot of hickory, and white oak and split blackjack oak for the cook fire and plenty of dry balsam and pine for the main camp fire, so that we could have light as well as heat. Almost every boy who loves the woods wants to be the Old Scout of his band, and, let me tell you something, boys do not give the leadership to any one in the woods but to He Who Knows. You may be big and strong and the best fighter in the bunch, but the leadership goes to the quiet boy who seems to know all about how to do things in camp and trail, who does things better than any one else, and gets results quietly and efficiently every time. Beware of the boy who knows how things should be done but cannot do them himself. He may talk a good deal — the rest will watch and soon he makes a mess of it — and he gets the nick- name "Professor" — while the leadership goes to the boy who makes good, even if his way is not the best. The great game of woodcraft is technical, as technical as civil engineering. There is a lot to learn, and while some one who knows can tell you how in print, until you have practised at it your- self until you know how, your woodcraft is of the CAMP FIRES 245 "Professor" type. We boys once made a camp for the sole purpose of building and trying out a variety of fires — and that at the tender age of twelve years ! Some of those fires I make to this day, and I could build them in my sleep ! Old Nessmuk, the Pine Marten, was the first to put the backlog fire into print. We use it to this day, practically unmodified. Two two-inch horn- beam or red oak or red maple stakes are cut, four feet long and driven into the ground on the fire site, leaning slightly backwards and facing the open tents. Why these woods, so carefully men- tioned above? Because they are nearly unburn- able when green, and you do not want the fire to burn out these stakes and let your whole back log screen tumble over in a heap. The fire eats out the bottom log in time, and attacks the feet of these stakes, and if of any old wood they will surely burn through in no time. In sandy coun- try green pitch pine will answer the same purpose. Against these stakes are piled, one on top of another, five four- or five-inch logs, three feet long. They are chosen of red oak or red maple or green pitch pine, green balsam or sour gum, for the reason that these will not burn out quickly and the logs are wanted to last and reflect heat and light into the tents. Two short billets of the same 246 CAMPING FOR BOYS woods are next cut and staked against the back- logs on each side for andirons. They are essen- tial to get plenty of good draft, without which most fires smoke and smoulder and act like real tenderfoot blazes. Then, to hold the fire together, stake a forestick across the front of the andirons and you are ready to build the fire proper. First, a roll of birch bark, then a huddle of dry leaves and small twigs, or fresh shavings if the woods are wet. Then, on these, small dry sticks broken from the dead under branches of surrounding oaks or spruces, never picked up off the duff. Now two long sticks laid diagonally across the andirons from forestick to backlogs, and on these five or six assorted logs of birch, maple, pignut hickory, chestnut and white oaks. These are not laid par- allel but slightly crossing, leaving plenty of room for flames to get through. This fire is next well chinked with small dry sticks thrust down through the upper logs into the starting fire be- low. It is best set off just at dusk, and is built about five p. m. while the chefs are cooking grub. It takes an hour's chopping to get twenty four- and five-inch logs three feet long with a belt axe, and, using seven for the structure of the fire, you have five for the main body and eight for two charges of night logs. When it gets too dark to THE INDIAN FIRE A good model for a friendship fire. The poles are simply shoved in towards the center as their ends burn away. THE NESSMUK BACKLOG FIRE The best fire for heating an open tent. In boy's size 4- and 5-inch logs of red oak or green balsam, or green pitch pine, three feet long, are plenty big enough for a night fire. -From "Camp Craft" CAMP FIRES 247 see comfortably the match is applied, and imme- diately you have a flame six feet high which floods the camp with light and warmth, dries out the dampness from tents and bedding and gives a fine place to eat in front of. You need give it no at- tention for at least an hour, when the second charge is put on and the party settles down for after-dinner stories, council and preparations for bed. Then, about nine o'clock the last charge is put on, and the party turns in and is soon asleep in the ruddy glow of the fire, while its heat rays far into the night will be reflected down upon the sleepers from the tent walls, — the finest, heathiest sleep known to mankind. Next morning the ruins of the backlog fire are made over into a Chinook fire. There are a few embers left buried in the ashes ; pieces of dry stubs charred at the ends here and there, maybe three of the backlogs, half charred through. The Chef re- organises this to make a Chinook fire as in the illustrations. One log is laid over the andirons in the place of the former forestick, with its charred side down. The other two are laid side by side a short distance behind this one, and a fire started under them. It is fed with sticks of birch to make it go, and maple to give it coals that stay alive. Two uprights are set up over the rear 248 CAMPING FOR BOYS pair of logs, a cross pole lashed to them, and the coffee pot and fruit bowl hung over them to boil. Fish, bacon, etc., are done in fry pans sitting on the two rear logs, and meanwhile cookie has got- ten his cornbread batter or biscuit dough ready in the mixing pan. The fire has reached over and set the forward log all aglow underneath, and cookie helps this along by raking out a bed of live coals under it. At the same time he scoops away a hole from the ashes and dirt in front of the forward log and into this he rakes more coals. The batter or dough is next set in the largest fry pan and set to bake in this hole, tipped up at about forty-five degrees, getting heat underneath from the live coals (which should be covered with shag- bark hickory or hemlock bark to keep them from burning the bread) and at the same time it gets strong heat from the glowing log overhead which is kept going by the fire under it. Such is the Chinook fire, one of the best breakfast fires ever devised. Let us return to the night before and look over the labours of the chefs at the evening meal. As this is THE big eats of the day, they have a stew on, broiled meat, tea, stewed fruit, boiled rice or potatoes, and bread to make, and so the fire used is of great interest. Undoubtedly the most con- CAMP FIRES 249 venient range is the wire grid, such as comes sep- arate from the outfitter 's in the 9x14 inch size for 50 cents (or get half a broiler spider from the ten- cent store), or the grid which comes in the Stopple kit. The best fire under a grate that I know of is a crib of split sticks of green blackjack oak, the little oak with the clubshaped leaf which grows in thickets. It gives almost no flame, plenty of heat and lasts a long while. The Firemen of the camp see that the cooks are well supplied with this, all split for use. Just as good is hickory (not the shagbark which is too valuable for its nuts to waste on firewood) and after that, hard maple and the chestnut and white oaks. Lack- ing a grate the regular camp fire with two up- rights and a cross pole is good. It is usually shown with crotches, but as these are hard to find and harder yet to drive into the ground, straight stakes are better with the cross pole lashed to them with pieces of copper wire. The woods- man's pothooks come next, made of forked branches with the lower end notched with the penknife to take the pot bales. Another good pot- hook that is adjustable can be made by any boy by getting ten cents worth of brass windowsash chain, cutting into 18 inch lengths, and putting on hooks at each end. These are hooked over the 250 CAMPING FOR BOYS cross pole at any height desired by simply put- ting in the hook at any link in the chain that it comes at when thrown over the pole. The lower hook takes the pot bale. Under the cross pole go two logs of one of the unburnable woods, red oak, etc. These must rest on short billets under their ends or there will not be draft enough to keep a good fire going, and are best staked in place so that an inadvertent kick in passing may not dis- place the logs and tip any fry pan resting on them into the fire. For a midday "hilm' th' kittle" the crosspole is dispensed with and its place taken by a dingle stick, simply a long slender green pole stuck slantwise into the ground and held firm by two forked stakes a foot long driven in a short distance from the rear end. At its outer end hang the pots and as each new one bends the pole lower this must be allowed for in cutting pot hooks. A pair of parallel logs under the pole lengthwise of it, confine the fire within bounds and give a place to set the fry pans. For baking with the reflector baker you want a high fire ; in a dutch oven made of a fry pan with cover, a bed of coals protected by bark chips and a bright fire built on top of the pan. For the former the easiest way to get a high fire if you have a grate is to simply set a blazing log on top CAMP FIRES 251 of the grate on one edge. The fire below will keep it going and its own flames will add greatly to the height of the fire. If no grate, drive in two pairs of small stakes 18 inches high and 2 inches apart. Fill in with short billets until you have a back- stop a foot high. Build a high hot fire in front of this, with the sticks leaning upright against it. This will give you a flame thirty inches high with most of the heat up above, and is the only way to get biscuits browned on top before the bottoms burn. And remember that unless the reflector baker is clean and polished inside it will not bake at all. A sooty baker simply burns the good dough ! Occasionally, especially in midsummer camp- ing, no hot fire is wanted for the main fire, but lots of light would be very acceptable and cheer- ful. For this purpose collect a lot of short dry sticks and split billets and build of them a crib of sticks laid in rows an inch apart, the next layer at right angles to the one below. The first three layers of this are to be just the outer sticks alone, like a log cabin, and the starting fire built inside. Touch this off and you will have a bright flaming fire of little heat. Good for council fires and go- ing-to-bed fires. Another good one for midsum- mer is the Indian fire. All the dead saplings that 252 CAMPING FOR BOYS can be pushed over are dragged to camp and ar- ranged in a ring like the spokes of a wheel. Over the ends of these is built a pyramidal fire of dry sticks and touched off at dusk. As the embers and coals of these heap up on the ends of the saplings they too take fire, and, as they burn away, are fed in towards the centre. Like every- thing else the Indians do it gives the maximum of results with the minimum of work ! Let me conclude with dangerous fires. Some woods pop so that they are continually filling the forest with live coals and burning holes in the tents. Such woods are hemlock, the two cedars, chestnut, balsam and spruce, and all the soft pines. To qualify a,s Able Fireman a boy has to know almost as much forestry as the cookies have to know chemistry, so if you elect that job in camp, don't take it over without enough prelimi- nary study in tree identification and axemanship to make good. And, when the camp is broken, it is the Fireman's duty to see that the fire laws are complied with. That fire must be out; not dead, but OUT. It will not do to kick it about and put dirt on it ; just poke about in the duff with your thumb if you are not convinced that a few live coals are still alive. The only thing that will put it absolutely out is water and lots of it. Drown CAMP FIRES 253 the site. I've known a fire, left for "dead" to hold One Spark, which in two days became a smouldering heap; a wind sprang np, blew some leaves on it, blew them off again (lighted), and — set the forest afire! Some States have fire laws requiring a permit from the warden before going into camp and the Fireman should see to this per- mit before the party starts. If there is much leaf- age and duff about build a ring of rocks around the fire site, and always clear the site for several yards around before permitting any fire to be made. We once started a fire in a nice ravine for the midday lunch and before any one could say Jack Eobinson that whole ravine was ablaze with burning leaves, requiring the united efforts of the whole tribe to get it under control and out again. Fire is the Forest's worst enemy, and as the For- est is your Big Friend, see that your fire never harms it ! CHAPTEE VII WOODSMANSHIP The boys of to-day are re-learning the ideal of the Indian. When I was a boy we openly adored Cooper's Indians, the noble Uncas and his stern father, Chingachgook. We took them to heart as our ideals and named ourselves after them and tried to live up to their examples. Then as we grew older we were told that the noble Eed Man was a pure fake ; that in reality he was dirty, lazy, savage and cruel, and that Cooper's word-paint- ings of him were a gross exaggeration. We now know that these base calumnies of the Eed Man were industriously spread by those mainly inter- ested in taking his lands away from him, aided and abetted by such historians as Parkman who judged only from what they saw as travellers com- ing into contact with the worst specimens of the race. But still our boyish ideal of Uncas and Chingachgook persisted ; if the Indian was not like them in reality, — he ought to be, with such a glori- ous life to lead ! and now we learn the truth from the neglected writings of such men as Catlin and 254 WOODSMANSHIP 255 others who lived with the early Indians, and again from such early plainsmen as really knew and ap- preciated him. For he was the Spartan of the New World. His art is the only so-called savage art that en- dures modern criticism; his religion was singular in its simplicity and nobleness. He prayed daily for Courage, Truth, Honour and Chastity, and what boy of to-day could ask for more ! For, with these four attributes of character, all that is de- sirable in this life will be added. The Indian's mode of life appeals to all boys; his ideal that since the Great Spirit is in everything then everything, even articles of daily use, should be made beautiful, appeals to boys and finds ready expression in the decoration of tents, accoutre- ments, rifle and equipment. And so, to boys and most outdoorsmen, comes a desire to know the primitive woodcraft of the Indian; how to make the rubbing stick fire, the stick bed, bark shelters and utensils, basketry, ropemaking, bow and ar- row and fishing tackle, wilderness foods and cook- ing utensils — all that comes under the name of woodsmanship. Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton, who has done so much to restore to common knowl- edge the art and character of the Indian, has set all these things down at length in his "Book 256 CAMPING FOR BOYS of Woodcraft." As I have used and made most of the things there described, since early boyhood, I will run over them briefly in this chapter. My equipment was, for the most part, copied from real Indian specimens in the big Museums, which I used to haunt whenever in the City. To begin with the rubbing stick fire. Every boy should know this simple trick; most Boy Scouts learn it as part of their regular instruc- tion. Given a shoe lace or thong, one can kindle a fire even if lost in the woods with this knowledge tucked away in the brain. Nature has supplied at least one tree in every woods that will give suitable wood for the purpose, and this in every part of our big country. For the West, dry Cot- tonwood is the thing; Pacific coast, red fir; our Eastern woods, dry balsam, linden, red and white cedar; in the South, cypress. Even dry white pine will answer, provided it is not too young and resiny. What is wanted is a wood that is soft fibred, free from natural lubricants like resin, and capable of producing a fine charred dust un- der friction. Of your wood, make a drill a foot long and an inch thick, pointed at the lower end, and whittled to a shoulder and pinion at the upper end. The drill socket that fits over this pinion must be of some hard wood, preferably a pine WOODSMANSHIP 257 knot which furnishes its own lubrication. For the fire board split out a flat piece of the same wood as the drill, cut a notch in it half an inch deep, and start a shallow cup with the penknife just beyond the point of the notch. Next you want a bow. Get it out of some stout springy wood like young hickory or a branch of white oak. Fasten your thong to both ends of it just tight enough to make one turn around the drill, grip- ping it tightly. Now some tinder, which can be made of a strip of cedar bark crumpled and broken with the hands, or of shredded and powdered birch bark, or crumpled fine dry grass. Now put a small chip under the notch in the fireboard, set both on the ground, put your left foot firmly down on it, put the point of the fire drill into the shallow cup at the tip of the notch, and start revolving the drill with long strokes of the bow. As you bear down on the drill socket with your left hand, the cup is reamed out into quite a hole, and presently smoke begins to come out of it. Now put on more speed, keeping the pressure about the same ; when the smoke comes in dense clouds with yellowish tinge and there is a little hill of black dust in the notch, take away the drill and fan gently with your hand, not your breath, for the moisture in it would put out the spark. A thin column of 258 CAMPING FOR BOYS smoke is ascending from the pile of dust, and if this persists yon have the spark down inside and can raise chip and fireboard together and blow gently on it. Soon it has grown into a small live coal and then you take away the fireboard and put your tinder gently down on the pile of dust and live coal and blow gently on it. As soon as the tinder takes, blow hard and soon you have the flame. Linden is the quickest wood; the world's record so far as I know, is held by Dr. Joe Eoot of Hartford who got flame in 27 seconds from the word "Go!" Seton's record is 29 seconds when last heard from; my own, one minute and fifteen seconds, but I have not tried for speed. I am more interested in finding woods that will work, for in the Middle Atlantic States balsam is hard to find, linden is very rare and most of the woods are filled with oaks, maples, gums, pines and hem- locks, none of which will get the fire with any certainty. Cedar is the easiest wood to find; it takes lots of strength to get a fire with it before one tires out. The secret is to call up your last ounce of energy just about when you are all in, and "give her both barrels" at the end of the drilling. The Indian stick bed is another primitive bit of woodcraft that appeals to boys. It is the lightest WOODSMANSHIP 259 and most comfortable bed to carry on the trail, and rain cannot hurt it. I made several of them before I was satisfied. Seton's beds have too large sticks and too far apart to be very com- fortable without a mattress, and as I had no use for any bigger mattress than a deerskin weighing under three pounds I made my bed of small sticks only three-eighths of an inch in diameter. The best woods are sour gum and pin oak, the reason being that these will bend but not break. In such narrow sticks as these your weight will let your hips down, but that is better in the long run than carrying a heavy bed of sticks stout enough to hold you up all over. The stick bed is rolled out on a couple of straight poles six feet long, and stretched to two stout cross pieces staked in place at the ends of the poles. Under where the hips come I put a pile of browse or leaves and let her touch; all the rest of me is held up springily at every point. To make, you need six strands of the smallest hemp rope about eight feet long. Whittle a fid of hard wood, something like a small marlinspike. Start the bed with a stout rod five- eighths of an inch thick which is rove through the strands of the ropes, opening the strands with the fid. Lash with fish line at all six points. Now work in about seventy of the % inch rods, spacing 260 CAMPING FOR BOYS them not over % mcn from centre to centre. Each must be lashed at all six ropes to stay in place and not bunch up the strands of the rope. Finish with a second % inch rod, laying all the others butts to tops alternately. Even bent and crooked sticks will straighten in threading through the rope, and when done you have a bed 24 inches wide, five feet long that will weigh about 3% pounds and roll into a package 5 inches diameter. On the trail I roll it out and stake fast as de- scribed, covering it with a thin layer of hemlock or pine browse or even dry leaves, and then on that roll out the sleeping bag. It makes a fine, springy bed and you are asleep on it in no time. For deco- ration, dip half the bed in red dye made of boiled dogwood roots and the other half in black dye of bark of the white oak boiled with a nail in the pot. Add also a head piece of canvas, painted with your totem, and a suitable Indian border (see museum for decorative art) and put in it three rows of pockets to hold your small valuables when asleep especially the things that may be wanted quickly at night, such as your match box, electric flasher, watch, and pistol if in a wild game country where small animals come sniffing into the door of the tent of an early morning. Another good bed, that can be made up in an af- WOODSMANSHIP 261 ternoon if on a permanent camp not likely to be soon moved, is the grass mat. Make a loom of twine warps spaced three inches apart, each ten feet long. All of these ( there will be eleven of them for a 30-inch wide bed) mnst be fastened to a head string lashed to the head stick of the loom, which is pegged out some few inches above the ground. Half of the warps, alternately are to be pegged to stakes a foot high stuck in the ground at first about four feet from the head stick. The other half of the warps are tied to a foot stick which can be raised and lowered by the second boy on the job. All these warps come up and down be- tween the ones fastened to the pegs, so that in raising and lowering the foot stick you cross the sets of warps. Get a quantity of grass and make it into bundles or sheathes some two inches thick. Start the first sheathes with the foot beam raised, and ram them home tight against the head stick. Now the beam boy lowers his foot stick, thus cross- ing all the warps and imprisoning the sheathes in place. A second set of sheathes is now rammed home against the first, and again the warps are crossed by raising the beam. This is kept up until you have woven a grass mat two inches thick, thirty inches wide and five or six feet long. Finish by tying all the warps over the last sheathes of 262 CAMPING FOR BOYS grass and securing them in place with a foot twine so that they cannot slip sidewise. Another bed for a one-night camp or other short stay camp where you have not much time to spend on bedding is the browse bed. Climb the nearest hemlock, white pine, or balsam, and lop off a dozen bushy lower limbs. It will not hurt the tree much, for these lower limbs are bound to be shade-killed in time anyway. Chop off your browse branches about a foot long. To carry them to camp in a woodsmanlike manner, cut a stout sapling four feet long with a crotch or stub at the lower end. Stick this upright in the duff and hook your browse branches around it by their big ends, laying each layer in a circle. Soon you will have a furry caterpillar of green browse of approximately the diameter of two browse branches and as high as the stick. Carry to camp like an old-timer; one stickful is enough for one bed. Lay the browse carefully with the big ends down, shingling from head to foot of bed. Spread on ground cloth or poncho and then your blankets or sleeping bag. Another woodsman's tool that every boy likes to carry is the maple or cherry knob cup. These knobs are formed by the tree over old branch stubs. As the branch is shade-killed it dries and WOODSMANSHIP 263 rots close to the trunk and the winter winds break it off. Season by season the bark creeps over it until finally the tree has buried it deep with layers and layers of new sapwood until there is a knob formed. Saw this off close to the trunk, and choose a big deep one while you are at it, for they are much smaller than they look outside. You will find the rotted powder of the old branch stub at the heart of the knob, and a lot of hard heart wood surrounding it. Bore holes in this with an auger bit, getting out the bulk of it by so doing. Now start with a gouge and begin shelling out the layers of sap wood. You will find that the knob consists of a regular series of these sap- wood layers about an eighth of an inch thick. These are all to come out except the outer two and it is surprising how easily they spall out if you get right at the knob before the sap has had a chance to dry. I have made a knob cup within two hours from the time I began to saw off the knob (which, by the way is the hardest job of the lot). Your penknife will pry off the outer bark, but augur bit and gouge are the better tools for the interior. Stain, varnish or shellac outside, but do not put anything on the inside, for some liquids dissolve the shellac, and hot water is sure to make trouble for any inside finish. A leather thong and small 264 CAMPING FOR BOYS maple barrel suffice to fasten the cup through your belt over your left hip. I usually replace the bar- rel with some such useful appendix as a snipe whistle or dog call. How to travel in the woods is a subject not often written about, most writers for boys overlooking its importance. Your veteran woodsman swings along hour after hour, noiselessly, easily, quietly, while you flounder and get into all sorts of diffi- culties. How does he do it? In the first place, by the way he handles his body. He has the woods- man's swing to his hips, not stiff and rigid like a man on a country road, but limber and flexible, his body always in perfect balance, so that no muscles are exerted in keeping himself on his feet. Keep an eye on this detail when next you travel in the woods, and keep it up until it becomes second na- ture. Let yourself go, loose and easy, don't strain and don't be in a hurry. Your eyes are always busy, not only in picking out the best going ahead but in searching every vista ahead for game and wild things. Of two possible routes always take the upper, for low lands in the woods always mean swamps, briars and hard going. Skirt around these rather than try to force through them, for they will always get worse as you go on. If into such country inadvertently, work towards higher WOODSMANSHIP 265 ground. In running a line by compass do not try to steer yourself like a ship by it, but stop every few hundred yards and pick out a promi- nent object like a burnt or dead tree, a big one, a crooked one, a rock shelf, anything that you can set out for, and work over to it no matter how much detour you have to take to get to it. Once there you are on your course again, and can stop and pick out another prominent object ahead on your direct line. Thus you can run an absolutely straight line, whereas if you tried to steer your- self by compass you would have to change your position so much, owing to detours and obstruc- tions, that your course would be a long crooked one, trending far off the correct line from where you started out. In following a blazed trail, never abandon one blaze until you have spotted the next one ahead, and don't take a spalled piece of bark for a blaze no matter how good it looks, for to lose your blaze is to lose the trail, and your chances of finding it again are slight. Two blazes on a tree, one above the other, usually mark some object of interest or are a trap or cache sign, but if two blazes are on opposite sides of the same tree it means a turn in the trail, so watch out for the next blaze, some- where else than in the line of your course. In 266 CAMPING FOR BOYS stony country the blazes are usually small cairns of stones or short blazed stakes driven in along the trail. Here again a pile made in an angle indi- cates a sharp turn in the trail. If totally lost, do not follow a brook unless absolutely necessary, for its ways are devious and apt to be hard going. If you know the direction you want to go in cut loose from the brook and strike across the forest by com- pass. If your destination is a lake or river or valley which you are positive lies in a given direc- tion, it will get you there much sooner and more easily than the brook, which is sure to take its own time. The north end of your compass needle is al- ways black, but, in the panic of getting lost, every boy doubts this and isn't quite sure which is which — even a man tenderfoot can be bluffed into believ- ing that the white end is north, as I have often tried it out on them when they knew very well that black was north! To avoid any such discussion, test your compass some day and scratch on the back of the case black is nokth for this compass, date — so-and-so, for the other boy is sure to doubt it. The sun is a good guide, if you have a watch, for half way between the hour hand and twelve is south when the hour hand points at the sun ; but, particularly in winter, the sun is so slow in getting over his course and ranges so far south that to WOODSMANSHIP 267 steer by him is apt to set you off your course, with- out a watch to check up south. If the course leads across a swamp, pick out something prominent across the swamp on the course, and then work around to it. Don't try to get into that low ground, for you will just tire yourself out and get panicky and discouraged. If it is a grey day and no sun and you have no compass you are in for some adventures. Lost man gun signals are Bang! Bang! Bang! and repeat every ten minutes, or even five. Three fires, raising smoke a hundred feet apart mean the same thing, and every woodsman within sound or sight will come to you. If no answer, follow a brook or climb a tree on top of a mountain, hoping to spot some familiar landmark from there. There is nothing in the average woods that will tell north, but, by averaging up many indications of where the sun has shone and left evidence, you can find south with some certainty. In the woods north, east, south and west are all alike — deep shade ; so waste not much time on moss on north sides of trees and the like — there won't be any. But, when you come to an open spot where the sun has had a chance, then look carefully. Weeds will be growing thick in front of a rock that faces south, with shade-loving weeds, if any, and moss 268 CAMPING FOR BOYS on that side if the rock faces north. Lichens will be burnt and scanty on the south faces of rocks but abundant on the north faces, and again the moss. Weeds and brambles will be thick under the trees edging the open facing south, while they will be absent or scanty under the north-facing trees. All the bushy branches will lie to the south, those pointing north will be stunted and gnarly. Hemlocks in the open will have their tips bent to the east or northeast, and sweet gums will have most of their burrs strewn to the northeast by the prevailing southwest winds of autumn. Finally, on a grey day the wind is generally east, northeast or southeast. Once having gotten north with reasonable cer- tainty, don't rush off and lose it again, but keep it like you would a spark of fire, with the greatest care. Pick out a big landmark that can be seen from any tree top and work to it or away from it as your course may direct, and whenever you lose north again, climb a tree and find the landmark. In a word, don't race, don't get frightened — it is the camp that is lost, not you — and work at the problem with all your brains, making them save your strength and legs instead of wearing out the latter in foolish going just for the sake of getting somewhere. It is better to stay where you are than to go away from camp. CHAPTER VIII LIVING OFF THE FOREST Boys are much more apt to need a meal from forest foods than even men hunters and trappers. For instance, you start for a hike in the forest; you intended to get back about noon, but before you know it it is noon and there is lots more that you want to explore — if you could only get a bite to keep you over midday, and so make a day's hike of it. You wished that you had brought along some lunch, but that is too late now; can't we find something edible? Well, there are literally tons of food all around you, and it is part of woodsmanship to know how and what to eat. In midsummer the natural lunch will be berries, frogs and fish ; in the fall, nuts, rock tripe and game, and to get the latter we use the same tools that the In- dian did before the white man was ever heard of. One preferably hikes in the woods from Septem- ber on, for the insects then have subsided some- what. September is practically summer, except that berries are ripe and the fish are still in evi- 269 270 CAMPING FOR BOYS dence. I once caught a brook pickerel with no other implement than a beech broom. He was motionless at the head of a shallow pool in a brook and I needed fish for breakfast. Cornering him in the shallow water, a few quick swipes of the brnsh swept him out on the rocky brook bed, and before he could hop back he was pounced on and was soon baking on a stick before a fire. But a better way to catch all small fish is to build an Indian fish weir. Cut a lot of small shoots of red maple or arrowwood or even elder. Bind them into a flat net by twisting greenbriar or wild grape vines with two or three of these twists crossing all the sticks, and one stick between each twist. Such a net will be two feet high, say three feet long, and all the big ends of the sticks will be downward with a twist of vine along the bottom, and a second about a foot higher. With this you make a fish trap. Find a small pool, down below a larger one that is full of fish — trout, sunnies, chub, dace, even minnows and catties — and set this net across the downstream end of the smaller pool. See that it is carefully chinked with mud and stones, so that there is no way for the water to get through except through the stick. Now fix up the upper end of the pool so that it has a narrow clear channel to the upper pool and set aside a big rock that will LIVING OFF THE FOREST 271 securely close it. Next, go up in the upper pool armed with brushes and wade in, scaring all the fish down into the little pool. Many of them will hide under rocks, etc., so be thorough in clearing the upper pool. Close the lower with your stone, cut a new channel for the overflow water, and you will have a whole aquarium of fish in the trap, most of which can be caught by hand or it can be drained dry by mudding the rock so no more water can come in. For game, the bow and arrow is always good, and every boy should know how to shoot one. So long as you have a shoestring on you and there is a branch of oak, a hornbeam sapling or a young cedar you have your bow. The arrow is the im- portant thing. Most young shoots of maple, chest- nut and viburnum or arrowwood are plenty straight enough, but no arrow will fly anywhere near straight unless it is feathered. Make these of birch bark or even a tassel of shredded bark — anything that will take the air currents and make the arrow fly head first. For a head the simplest point is just whittled and fire burnt. In using the bow the Indian's way of getting right on top of the game by his woodcraft before expending the shot is the only thing. Your easiest game is the confiding little chipmunk, and after him come such 272 CAMPING FOR BOYS birds as robin and flicker, both of which are fond of wild cherries and dogwood berries. Sitting concealed under such a bush they will come not two arrow lengths away and can hardly be missed when the fatal shaft is loosed. In the North one can get almost as near to partridges, and the two squirrels are almost as unwary. Of course in the case of a starving lad, the game laws have to be temporarily suspended but otherwise some of these birds must be let severely alone. To have a bow that is all of your own woodsmanship the thong also must be woods-made, and the best thong I know of is the bast rope, made of a young mockernut hickory sapling. Cut this down and peel off the bark, which will come off like a glove any time but in winter when the sap is down, next slit the bark into three long strips an eighth-inch wide. Now knot these at the upper end, and plat a three-braid rope of it, adding more strips to each length as required. Three strong men cannot break such a rope, and it is flexible and knots readily. Makes a good lasting bowstring. The Indians fletch their arrows by splitting a feather and tearing off a little of the feathering at each end of the quill so as to get some three inches of vane. Three of these vanes are then lashed on with fine deer sinew. The point is made of a long LIVING OFF THE FOREST 273 piece of some heavy hard wood, such as locust, pin oak or persimmon, pointed, polished and fire-hard- ened, and these make good arrows for small game. Only do not waste them on game that is more than ten feet away ! To cook all these things the easiest is to split and broil before a bed of coals on a sassafras fork. Some one may have brought along some tea or a couple of potatoes or in some forest cache there may be some flour and a packet of baking powder. To cook these requires boiling for fifteen minutes for the potatoes, or steeping four minutes for the tea. The best way I have tried is with a maple log bowl, cut from a six inch billet two feet long. In this I dug out a long shallow hole, like gouging out a boat, using only the axe and hunting knife. It held a quart of water and to boil it I set a dozen stones as big as eggs over the fire and let them get white hot, that is so hot that they were fire-clean with no soot on them. Five of these stones brought the quart of water to a boil, and each stone thereafter kept the quart boiling for a min- ute. They were all put in at one end of the bowl, so as not to get the water dirty, and I made a fine erbswurst soup out of a teaspoonful of the powder. Another way is to cut a square of birch bark about a foot on a side, flex it over the fire, and bend to a 274 CAMPING FOR BOYS rectangular boat skewing with sticks. This can go right over a bed of glowing embers and will come to a boil if you keep blowing on it. All the bark above the waterline will take fire and soon dip and spill the soup unless you reinforce it in- side with a twig rim in contact with the liquid. To make woods biscuit, cut out all the fat on your birds or squirrels and try it out in a shallow birch-bark bowl or a rock with a hollow in it. Mix this tallow with the flour and baking powder and form into a ribbon of biscuit dough about two inches wide and half an inch thick. Wind this around the end of a two-inch diameter maple stick which has been peeled and set over the fire until it is screeching hot and then lean it over your coals until the biscuit has been raised and browned. Peel off and eat as you go. This is the woods ' < Club Bread/ ' What is left of your fat will do to fry puff ball mushrooms with. The regular field mushroom does not grow in the woods, and all the deadly poisonous ones do, in the greatest abundance, so the best rule is to let them all alone, for you do not know you are poisoned until over twelve hours later when it is too late and no human aid can save you. However, no one can mistake the puff-ball. It has no gills, no umbrella, nothing that a poison- THE INDIAN TEEPEE An encampment of the Red Lodge, and most picturesque camps for a permanent camping- organization. The teepee makes one of the best crowd of boys. A good base for a A PRIMITIVE COOK KIT Maple club biscuit baker, log soup bowl, hot stones for boiling soup, and sassafras broiling fork with wire broiler. LIVING OFF THE FOREST 275 ous mushroom has, and it looks like a big leathery pear. Do not pick little ones, they may be just the cap of some deadly species. But a big one is all solid white inside, and you slice it and fry or bake on a smooth flat stone. When fully ripe and full of puff powder it is one of the best punks for carrying fire in the woods, for a coal embedded in it will keep for hours so that you can move your fire in a puff-ball with ease. Kock tripe is the only other fungus I would eat on a bet, and it also is unmistakable. Growing on most rocks in the woods you will note a quantity of black ears, round as pennies and curled up off the rock. Pick these and dry thoroughly over the fire, for they will physic you otherwise, and then boil in the log bowl for half an hour. Eesulting dish tastes like tapioca and is edible and nourishing. Of course the most sustaining of all raw forest foods are nuts. No flour in the world can com- pare with them, as you can easily prove by taking along a pocketful of them and munching them dur- ing your hunting trip whenever you feel faint and in need of sustenance. Chestnut has the most meat for the least work, and after him comes shag- bark hickory, black walnut, butternut and hazel nut. The most sustaining fruit of all is the per- simmon; its only rival is the date of the Orient, 276 CAMPING FOR BOYS both of them having almost as much protein as meat. I might digress here for a few observations on woodcraft in hunting. Do not stick to forest roads, nor yet just tramp along ; neither way will net you much game compared to real intelligent hunting. Put yourself in the animal's place ; what would he naturally be doing at this hour, and what is he feeding on? These are the two great questions. Grouse love dried huckleberries, though they will not touch them when they are plump and juicy ; they love dried wild grapes that have fallen to the ground, weed seeds, beech nuts, and, oh dear — how they love cranberries ! There- fore open the crop and stomach of the first grouse you kill that day and see what he has been eating. Thereafter search those spots and let the other fel- low just tramp along. When you come to a spot where one is likely to be, rest assured that he is watching you and will jump the instant he catches you off guard. If you whistle a little low tune he will linger a trifle longer than usual, but, whatever you do, do not make a single move without being ready at all times to shoot. Before putting your foot forward, look for a likely spot for it, and then feel for that spot without ever taking your eyes off the thicket or bramble or grape vine just ahead LIVING OFF THE FOREST 277 of you that looks grousey. In the same way, be on the watch for woodcock in swamp bottoms, and for quail along the timber edge in the weeds and brambles bordering farm fields. Here they feed, and they are all crouched down and watching you as you move along. Kick every clump and brier patch for rabbits, and when you kick be sure to be in position to shoot. Haunt the oak ridges and dogwood thickets for squirrels. Their favourite food is acorns and nuts, with an occasional berry diet — it is wasting time to look for them in a maple or birch thicket. That is real hunting, not just blundering along. And be always on the lookout for tracks and sign. Pass no sand patch or mud bank without ex- amination. Muskrat leaves his little claw marks with no palm ; mink, all five claws and a faint palm ; 'coon, a tiny baby hand ; squirrel, four tracks in a group with hind tracks in front of fore ; rabbit, an- other larger group, usually with the front paw tracks set very close together making a three-track group of it ; fox leaves the trail of a small dog, but it always registers, that is a single line of tracks like a two-legged animal, while the front and hind paws of a dog seldom register cleanly. Wildcat leaves a round four-toed-and-palm track larger than any cat and showing no claws. Quail tracks 278 CAMPING FOR BOYS are three-toed like small chickens, and grouse the same but larger. Watch roads, trails and stream banks for these tracks, and, if entirely fresh, stick around a bit and see what you can see. That means maybe half an hour of still hunting, but it will get you more game in that spot than just push- ing right on, strong as is the temptation to do so. When camped in a good game country in the trapping season, a good deal of game and fur can be added to the bag by setting a few simple woods- man's traps. Two woods-made traps suffice, one a springle for birds and one a deadfall for animals. The former is just a springy withe, bent into a bow by a string tied at the small end and held in a cleft in the large end by a short twig with a knife edge cut on it. The rest of the string is a slip noose lying on both sides of the twig. The bait is put at the end of the twig, firmly tied, and when the bird alights on it his weight bends down the twig, releases the string from its cleft, and the withe snaps straight, drawing the noose tight about the bird's feet. To make a deadfall, cut off a four-inch sapling about a foot above the ground, level off its top, and, with your axe make three clefts in it, forming three sides of a square. Into these are driven flat shooks, making three sides to your box. The rest of the sapling is squared off LIVING OFF THE FOREST 279 with the axe and cut about eight feet long. The squared end rests in your box and the other on the ground. The end of the log comes in the box and is held up as shown in the drawing by two triggers, the short one upright holding the log up and rest- ing on the long one to which the bait is attached. There is no way for a little animal to touch the bait except by climbing up on the stump, with his head in the box, and when he pulls the bait, down comes the log on his head, much more humane than any steel spring trap and any boy can make it in an hour or so with axe and knife. CHAPTER IX PERMANENT CAMPS While this chapter is primarily intended for older boys and men leaders who may be called upon to establish large encampments of boys for sum- mer instruction and training, it also has its uses in the oft-occurring case where three or four boys elect to spend the entire summer, or at least a month, at some favourite lake, and a large tent with cots is contemplated. For a long stay, where a team takes you into the camp site and weight is of no importance, the big wall tent exceeds all others in comfort and convenience. Crowding it closely is the large teepee, which will sleep almost as many around its circumference and permits bright cheerful fire at night inside the tent. Also it appeals more to the romantic in boys — unless they happen to be militarily inclined when the wall tent will be the only bet. And the latter can be kept as warm as the teepee by the addition of a tent stove — a fine labour-saving device to cook on, by the way, — and one properly managed will give off abundant heat all night long. 280 PERMANENT CAMPS 281 • Plain duck army tents usually require a fly over them, or they will be apt to leak and will surely fill with a fine mist driven through the weave in a heavy thunder shower. Much better tents are furnished by the sporting goods outfitters, requir- ing no fly and also furnished in the various light- weight paraffined muslins when they give an as- tonishing amount of room and housing for very little weight. The 9 x 12 foot size of light special waterproof tent is very popular for permanent camping. It will sleep four boys easily, the cots being arranged lengthwise along each wall with a four foot space in between. It requires no fly and weighs 30 pounds, costing about $15, so that if each boy chips in $3.75 the crowd at once owns a fine forest home. It has no stakes and poles, for on any decent site such things ought to be cutable in the forest, the proper way to put up a wall tent being with a pair of shears at each end and a pole lengthwise between the shears to which the ridge tapes are tied — the way they do it in the Hudson's Bay country. A regular army tent with poles, stakes and fly, is a bulky nuisance, no less, and it costs a good deal more in the 9 x 12. The 12 foot diameter by 10% feet high teepee will sleep five boys around the sides or eight to ten arranged like wheel spokes with feet to the 282 CAMPING FOR BOYS fire, and it weighs 11 pounds in special khaki and costs about $14. Because of its steeper roof it can be made of lighter canvas without any special waterproofing processes, as are used in the ex- tremely light tent goods. A ten-foot diameter teepee can be made up for about $5 by any en- terprising set of boys who will buy 26 yards of 8-ounce duck and cut it into eight strips 3% yards long. These strips are to be sewed on the machine to make a big square of canvas ap- proximately 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. A semi- circle is then struck on this cloth, ten feet in ra- dius, and the canvas cut and hemmed. The re- mainder makes two nice flaps 4 feet on one edge, five feet on the other and about 24 inches wide. The four-foot edge is sewed to the teepee cloth and provided with pockets for the smoke poles. Such a teepee is to be dyed red or yellow, and orna- mented with the totems of the tribe and later a pic- torial story of the adventures of the tent in its vari- ous camps. A gang of four or five boys who study faithfully Indian lore and works on woodcraft will be able to follow the spirit of the Indian teepee life and have many enjoyable camps at it. Somehow it conduces more to the study of woodcraft and forestry than life in any wall tent, whose associa- PERMANENT CAMPS 283 tions lean so much towards the white man and the soldiery. In either event I would not attempt a board floor for my permanent camp. It is expensive, difficult to transport and set up, and it precludes both tent stove and fire, so that it is in reality more con- ducive to cold and dampness than good Mother Earth under foot. A few camp mats of heavy 12 ounce duck or woven of grass should find a place beside each cot, leaving the rest of the ground free for the stove and eating table if the cooking is done elsewhere, as is usual in summer. In the fall and the early spring when the trout season opens, the nights will be cold and there will be more or less snow and ice, so that a fire in the teepee or in the tent stove means a lot of cheer and comfort. The main thing with a teepee fire is to avoid too much of it at first, so that the smoke flaps can carry off all the smoke made. Later, when a good bed of coals is established, the stunt is to keep three short fat billets on all the time. They last hour after hour, giving off much heat but no smoke, and when a deep bed of ashes is established and the last billets buried in them they will smoulder all night. Avoid a lot of small two-inch sticks which always have to be renewed and are always 284 CAMPING FOR BOYS giving off much smoke. Dry six- and eight-inch logs, split in half, are the best teepee fire-wood. For your wall tent the folding sheet iron stove, 10 x 12 x 26 inches, weighing eighteen pounds, with two holes for cooking, is the thing. Go light with your fire at first or it will smoke everything out. The pipe comes up outside the tent, with the body of the stove inside and the front flaps held away from contact by withes. One cot should be set back in the rear alley when using the stove, making three cots in a row across the rear end of the tent, one on the forward left hand side and the stove and cupboard occupying the right front. Never close up a tent with a stove inside of it, for they all make more or less asphyxiating gas, and free draft for the air should be provided for. Once you have a bed of coals on the ground inside the stove you can add wood, a few sticks at a time and will find it a wonderfully handy cooker for the chef and fireman, as the stove eats very little wood in proportion to the cooking that it does. A one-hole stove is too small to get meals promptly on, but a two-hole will take care of almost any meal. The reflector baker is set against the side of the stove, which is red hot or nearly so, and will bake like a regular oven that way. Meanwhile the two holes have fry pan and pot going on them, while the coffee pot can usually PERMANENT CAMPS 285 be set to simmer somewhere on the sheet iron top around the smoke pipe. Such a stove will stand the crowd about $5. For berths there is the 80 cent wire cot with cheap mattress ; the folding canvas tent cots, cost- ing about $2.50 ; or you can make your own cots by taking along each two yards of 8-ounce duck, lash- ing together a pole frame, tacking the canvas to it with 20 ounce galvanized iron tacks and resting the bed on two short log billets at either end. The In- dian stick beds also do well, in permanent camps if reversed each day. They should have a mattress, which may be a muslin bag filled with dry leaves, pine needles or hay. Once in camp, and sleeping accommodations pro- vided for, set about making yourself comfortable in the matter of eating tables. It will do for the first meal or so to squat down with your plate on knees and cup somewhere on the ground, but, ex- cept in nomadic camps where there is no time to set up a log table, proper eating facilities are es- sential to continued comfort. The simplest is a stand-up table made of an old plank laid on cross sticks between four upright stakes. Its height should be about 40 inches. Next in order comes the sit-down eating table 32 inches high, with log benches 16 inches high on each side. This can be 286 CAMPING FOR BOYS any dimension you prefer, but a long plank an- swers every purpose. Lacking a plank I have made very good tables out of two logs levelled off by filling with clean pebbles and sand and covered with a tarp or even birch bark tacked down. As the crowd camps together, year after year, such comforts as folding tent tables and chairs can be added if a wall tent is the home, if a teepee, such Indian furniture as stools, headpieces for beds, etc., will be made, not forgetting the sweat lodge on the banks of the lake. In general the details of a permanent camp differ not greatly from hiking and hunting camps when a small party is out, but when it comes to handling a crowd of, say, one hundred boys, the conditions change materially. One of the best camps of the kind that I ever saw had the boys organised into eleven lodges of eight boys and a leader, each lodge having its own tent, 10 x 14 feet with eight berths and a central frame which had the clothes hooks for all wearing ap- parel. The berths were made by tacking canvas across a stout pine frame, with uprights at each end so as to get two-high bunks, four on each side of the tent. All trunks, suitcases, etc., were ar- ranged down the centre of the tent underneath the clothes hook board. The tents were the standard army duck, with fly and board floor raised about a PERMANENT CAMPS 287 foot above the soil. They were pitched in a long row out in the sun, in a grass field, with a broad grass exercising ground in front where the blankets were spread out to air each morning. A central eating pavilion, a cook house and a teepee for the Big Chief and the leaders completed the establishment. This body was absolutely self- governing and self-sustaining, doing all their own work except cooking. The discipline was magnifi- cent and highly beneficial to the boys. Each leader was held responsible by a system of " sinkers' ' and honours for the condition of his tent, and these ' ' sinkers ' ' meant something, too — deprivation of ice cream on Sunday for the whole lodge, for instance. All the work of the encampment was done by the boys themselves. They built the council lodge, laid out tennis grounds, repaired roads and trails, prepared the food, set table, washed dishes, waited on table, built a church in the woods, painted and carpentered on the buildings, chopped wood, did all the work except that of two expert negro chefs. Every night at Council Lodge the leaders reported infractions of discipline, slovenliness, laziness, etc., and the Council meted out punishment in the form of " chump marks" — strips of surgical tape plastered on the bare arm and worn until work was 288 CAMPING FOR BOYS done sufficient to deserve its removal. Part of the regular ceremonies of the Council Lodge was the string of boys coming before the Chief with bare arms proudly held out for removal of the hated chump mark (and teeth set to withstand the pain of its tearing off!) and other bare arms held out ruefully for the infliction of a mark. After which there were games before the council fire, plans for hikes and for the coming day's work, and by nine o'clock the night whistle was sounded and every Brave had to be in bed in fifteen minutes lest the Inspector catch him unawares ! Next morning at 7, from the Big Teepee would come the rising whistle and the whole camp would turn out in its pajamas for Army setting up exer- cises, after which five minutes for a dip in the lake and then fifteen minutes to dress and report for breakfast. After breakfast each lodge would spread its blankets in the sun and tidy up the lodge against the visit of the Inspector, and then set about its tasks for the morning. Those boys could do anything from grading a road to painting a totem pole. At eleven the whistle sounded for the Big Swim, when for three quarters of an hour a hundred naked boys revelled in the waters of the lake, the PERMANENT CAMPS 289 younger ones being taught to swim properly by competent instructors. Then, grub; the report of the Inspector (consternation written on the faces of the Grey Wolf lodge over a "sinker" for a scrap of newspaper jammed in behind a trunk) and then the afternoon's play and study of nature under the leaders until five-thirty when again the dip in the lake. Boys were everywhere ; knots of boys busy at this and that ; gangs of boys hiking through the surrounding forested mountains ; little groups of boys on some special duty or other. It was a happy crowd, and the cost was but $6 per week per boy. I had the pleasure of teaching them something of the arts of camping, forestry, and fly and bait casting, and it needed but some one to show them that there were game fish in their lake and how to catch them to give them the seventh heaven of satisfaction. Mighty few sick boys in that crowd ! Like most big camps of this kind, it owed its Indian spirit and organisation to Dan Beard and Ernest Thompson Seton, whose writings on the Bed Man have been of such practical use to us all, boys and men. Like most of our natural resources we have wasted the Indian instead of conserving him. Certainly we whites could have 290 CAMPING FOR BOYS much improved ourselves by grafting him on our stock instead of killing him off, for there is nothing that our nation is in so much need of to-day as the Eed Man's simple virtues of Courage, Honour, Truth and Chastity. In a large camp, boys must have some ideal to work to, some underlying spirit with which to put themselves in accord. The encampment must be either military or Indian in its organisation. And it is the latter that by far the most appeals to the American boy. We have never been a military nation, and the absurd artificiality that causes a man to make a wooden monkey of himself before his ranking fellow-men in the name of military discipline smacks far too much of needless foolish restraint to appeal to boys. But the Indian's dis- cipline, while quite as rigid, is much more logical and sensible, while the picturesque organisation and ritual of the Indian tribe, product as it is of our native land, is far more effective and workable in the fundamentals of human existence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Personally there is no comparison in my mind between the Indian and the military style of en- campment. The military has for its ultimate end the organisation of mankind for the grim purposes of Death ; the Indian for the purposes of Life, for PERMANENT CAMPS 291 the most equal division of the common good so that none may lack and all share in the blessings which this good green earth so bounteously af- fords. 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