Outdoor Sports and Games Part 5

When you reach camp you can make a regular mattress by filling it with whatever material is most easily found. Dry leaves? gra.s.s, hay, even moss or wet filler can be used if nothing dry can be found, but in this case the rubber blanket will be an absolute necessity. Of course it is much better to use some dry material.

Be sure to have a comfortable bed. No matter what ideas you may have about cowboys and soldiers rolling up in their blankets and s.n.a.t.c.hing a few hours' sleep under the stars by lying on the bare ground, a boy who is used to a good bed at home will never have much fun out of a camping trip if he tries to sleep on the ground with a rock for his pillow.

For a summer camping trip, one blanket is enough. You must learn to roll up in it. Lie flat on your back and cover the blanket over you.

Then raise up your legs and tuck it under first on one side and then the other. The rest is easy. This beats trying to "roll up" in it, actually. The common summer blankets used at home are not much use for the camper. These are usually all cotton. A camper's blanket should be all wool. You can buy a standard U.S. Army blanket, size 66 x 84 inches, for five dollars. They can often be purchased in stores that deal in second hand army supplies for much less and are just as good as new except for some slight stain or defect.

A sleeping bag is expensive but is excellent for cold weather camping.

It is much too hot for the boy camper in summer.

Do not sleep in your clothing. Unless it is too cold, undress, about as you do at home. If the blanket feels tickly, it would not be a great crime, no matter what the tenderfoot says who wanted you to sleep on the ground, to take along a sheet. I have never done this, however.

At the end of this chapter, you will find a list of things to take with you.

The camp fire and the cooking fire should be separate. Almost any one can kindle a fire with dry materials. It takes a woodman to build a fire when it has been raining and everything is wet. The boy's method of taking a few newspapers, and a handful of brush or leaves will not do.

First look around for an old dead top of a pine or cedar. If you cannot find one, chop down a cedar tree. Whittle a handful of splinters and shavings from the dry heart. Try to find the lee side of a rock or log where the wind and rain do not beat in. First put down the shavings or some dry birch bark if you can find it, and shelter it as well as you can from the rain. Pile up some larger splinters of wood over the kindling material like an Indian's wigwam. Then light it and give it a chance to get into a good blaze before you pile on any larger wood and put the whole fire out. It sounds easy but before you try it in the woods I advise you to select the first rainy day and go out near home and experiment.

To make a fire that will burn in front of the tent all night, first drive two green stakes into the ground at a slant and about five feet apart. Then lay two big logs one on each side of a stake to serve as andirons. Build a fire between these logs and pile up a row of logs above the fire and leaning against the stakes. You may have to brace the stakes with two others which should have a forked end. When the lower log burns out the next one will drop down in its place and unless you have soft, poor wood the fire should burn for ten hours.

With this kind of a fire and with a leanto, it is possible to keep warm in the woods, on the coldest, night in winter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The frame for a brush leanto]

This is the way to build a brush leanto: First cut two sticks and drive them into the ground. They should have a point on one end and a fork on the other. Lay a stout pole across the two forks like a gypsy fire rig. Then lean poles against the crosspiece and finally thatch the roof with spruce, hemlock or other boughs and pile up boughs for the sides. A brush camp is only a makes.h.i.+ft arrangement and is never weather proof. It is simply a temporary shelter which with the all-night fire burning in front will keep a man from freezing to death in the woods. Any kind of a tent is better or even a piece of canvas or a blanket for the roof of the leanto will be better than the roof of boughs. Be careful not to set the leanto on fire with the sparks from your camp fire.

Mosquitoes have probably spoiled more camping trips that any other one thing. The best tents have mosquito net or cheese cloth fronts which may be held close to the ground by a stick on the bottom. Perhaps the easiest way to secure protection is for each boy to take along a few yards of cotton mosquito netting and by means of curved sticks build a canopy over his bed.

A smoky fire called a "smudge" will sometimes keep the pests away from the neighbourhood of the tent or if we build it in the tent will drive them out, but the remedy is almost as bad as the disease. As a rule they will only be troublesome at night and the net over our bed will enable us to sleep in peace.

The most common "dope" used in the woods to keep off mosquitoes is called oil of citronella. It has a very pungent odour that the mosquitoes do not like and the chances are that you will not like it either. At the same time it may be a good plan to take a small bottle along.

You may safely count on finding mosquitoes, no matter where you go or what the people tell you who live there. Perhaps they have never tried sleeping in the woods and do not know. Be sure therefore to take along some netting or cheese cloth to protect yourself against them.

Everything that you can do at home to get ready for your camping trip will add to your pleasure when you get out in the woods. If any part of your kit needs fixing, fis.h.i.+ng rods wound or varnished, your jackknife ground, your camera fixed, or if your clothing needs any patches or b.u.t.tons, do it at home.

No one ever does half that he plans to on a trip like this unless he does not plan to do anything. Take along a few books to read for the rainy days and have them covered with muslin if you ever expect to put them back into your library.

If you have been putting off a visit to the dentist, by all means do it before you get out where there are no dentists. An aching tooth can spoil a vacation in the woods about as easily as anything I know of.

As a final word of advice to the beginner in camping, let me tell you a few things that my own experience has taught me.

A felt hat is better than a cap as it is sun and rain proof.

Wear a flannel s.h.i.+rt and take one extra one. You can wash one and wear the other. Be sure to have a new s.h.i.+rt plenty loose in the neck as camp was.h.i.+ng in cold water will make it shrink. Do not go around in gymnasium s.h.i.+rts or sleeveless jerseys. One of my companions did this once and was so terribly sunburned that his whole trip was spoiled.

Two sets of underwear are plenty, including the one you wear.

Take along a silk handkerchief to wear around your neck.

Wear comfortable shoes. A camping trip is a poor place to break in new hunting boots or shoes.

Take bandanna handkerchiefs and leave your linen ones at home.

If you have to choose between a coat and a sweater take the sweater and leave the coat at home. A coat is out of place in the woods.

Khaki or canvas trousers are excellent. So are corduroy. An old pair of woollen trousers are just as good as either.

A poncho is almost necessary to your comfort. It is merely a rubber or oilskin piece with a slit in it to put your head through. The right size is 66 x 90 inches. With it you can keep dry day or night, either using it as a garment or as a cover. When you are not using it you can cover it over your bed or food supply.

Take along a good pocket knife and compa.s.s. Better leave the revolver home. Also always carry a waterproof box of matches.

You will require some kind of a waterproof "duffle" bag to carry your personal things--tooth brush, extra clothing, mirror, fis.h.i.+ng tackle, towel, soap, medicine, in fact whatever you think you will need. If it is your first camping trip you will come home without having had any use whatever for more than half the things you take. That is the experience of every one, so do not become discouraged.

If you camp within reach of a post-office, address some stamped envelopes to your home in ink before you leave. Then you will have no excuse for not writing a letter home.

You can make an excellent pillow by rolling up your trousers. Be sure to take everything out of the pockets first, including your knife, and roll them with the top inside so that the b.u.t.tons or your belt buckle will not bore into your ear.

If you fall overboard and come ash.o.r.e to dry out, stuff your shoes full of dry gra.s.s or old paper to keep them from shrinking. When they are dry, soften them with tallow or oil. Every one who goes camping at some time or other gets wet. The only advice I can give you is to get dry again as soon as possible. As long as you keep moving it will probably not injure you. Waterproof garments are of little use in the woods. They are always too warm for summer wear and by holding the perspiration, are more of an injury than a benefit.

Never wear rubber boots in the woods or you will surely take cold.

Better have wet feet. The best foot wear is moccasins. If you wear them see that they are several sizes too large and wear at least two pairs of heavy woollen stockings with them.

IV

CAMP COOKING

How to make the camp fire range--Bread bakers--Cooking utensils--The grub list--Simple camp recipes

Most boys, and I regret to say a few girls too, nowadays, seem to regard a knowledge of cooking as something to be ashamed of. The boy who expects to do much camping or who ever expects to take care of himself out in the woods had better get this idea out of his head just as soon as possible. Cooking in a modern kitchen has been reduced to a science, but the boy or man who can prepare a good meal with little but nature's storehouse to draw on and who can make an oven that will bake bread that is fit to eat, with the nearest range fifty miles away, has learned something that his mother or sister cannot do and something that he should be very proud of. Camp cooking is an art and to become an expert is the princ.i.p.al thing in woodcraft--nothing else is so important.

We often hear how good the things taste that have been cooked over the camp fire. Perhaps a good healthy appet.i.te has something to do with it, but it is pretty hard even for a hungry boy to relish half-baked, soggy bread or biscuits that are more suitable for fis.h.i.+ng sinkers than for human food. A party without a good cook is usually ready to break camp long before the time is up, and they are lucky if the doctor is not called in as soon as they get home.

There is really no need for poor food in the woods. Very few woodsmen are good cooks simply because they will not learn. The camp cook always has the best fun. Every one is ready to wait on him _"if he will only, please get dinner ready"_

One year when I was camping at the head of Moosehead Lake in Maine, I had a guide to whom I paid three dollars a day. He cooked and I got the firewood, cleaned the fish and did the ch.o.r.es around camp. His cooking was so poor that the food I was forced to eat was really spoiling my trip. One day I suggested that we take turns cooking, and in place of the black muddy coffee, greasy fish and soggy biscuit, I made some Johnny cake, boiled a little rice and raisins and baked a fish for a change instead of frying it. His turn to cook never came again. He suggested himself that he would be woodchopper and scullion and let me do the cooking. I readily agreed and found that it was only half as much work as being the handy man.

The basis of camp cooking is the fire. It is the surest way to tell whether the cook knows his business or not. The beginner always starts with a fire hot enough to roast an ox and just before he begins cooking piles on more wood. Then when everything is sizzling and red-hot, including the handles of all his cooking utensils, he is ready to begin the preparation of the meal. A cloud of smoke follows him around the fire with every s.h.i.+ft of the wind. Occasionally he will rush in through the smoke to turn the meat or stir the porridge and rush out again puffing and gasping for breath, his eyes watery and blinded and his fingers scorched almost like a fireman coming out of a burning building where he has gone to rescue some child. The chances are, if this kind of a cook takes hold of the handle of a hot frying pan, pan and contents will be dumped in a heap into the fire to further add to the smoke and blaze.

When the old hand begins to cook, he first takes out of the fire the unburned pieces and blazing sticks, leaving a bed of glowing coals to which he can easily add a little wood, if the fire gets low and a watched pot refuses to boil to his satisfaction. When the fire is simply a ma.s.s of red coals he quietly goes to cooking, and if his fire has been well made and of the right kind of wood, the embers will continue to glow and give out heat for an hour.

Of course, if the cooking consists in boiling water for some purpose, there is no particular objection to a hot fire, the fire above described is for broiling, frying and working around generally.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A type of camp fire that will burn all night]

There are all sorts of camp fireplaces. The quickest one to build and one of the best as well, is the "hunter's fire," All you need is an axe. Take two green logs about six to eight inches thick and five feet long and lay them six inches apart at one end and about fourteen inches at the other. Be sure that the logs are straight. It is a good plan to flatten the surface slightly on one side with the axe to furnish a better resting place for the pots and pans. If the logs roll or seem insecure, make a shallow trench to hold them or wedge them with flat stones. The surest way to hold them in place is to drive stakes at each end. Build your fire between the logs and build up a cob house of firewood. Split wood will burn much more quickly than round sticks. As the blazing embers fall between the logs, keep adding more wood. Do not get the fire outside of the logs. The object is to get a bed of glowing coals between them. When you are ready to begin cooking, take out the smoky, burning pieces and leave a bed of red-hot coals. If you have no axe and can find no logs, a somewhat similar fireplace can be built up of flat stones, but be sure that your stone fireplace will not topple over just at the critical time.