On the Trail | Page 2

Poisonous and non-poisonous snakes 173
Plants poison to the touch 181
Plants poison to the taste 185
The white birch-tree makes a fine background for the beaver 191
Blacktail deer snapped with a background of snow 193
The skunk 195
The porcupine stood in the shade but the background was light 197
Photographing a woodcock from ambush 199
The country through which you pass, with a trailer in the foreground
201
Method of protecting roots to keep plants fresh while you carry them to
camp for photographing 203
A rowboat is a safer craft than a canoe 206
Keep your body steady 208
Canoeing on placid waters 210
Bring your canoe up broadside to the shore 212
How to use the paddle and a flat-bottomed rowboat 215

The raft of logs 219
Primitive weaving in raft building 221
Learn to be at home in the water 225
For dinner 229
The veteran 231
Bends in knot tying 235
Figure eight knot 237
Overhand bow-line knot 237
Underhand bow-line knot 239
Sheepshank knot 239
Parcel slip-knot 241
Cross-tie parcel knot 241
Fisherman's knot 241
The halter, slip-knot, and hitching-tie 243
The fireman's lift 245
Aids in "first aid" 247
Restoring respiration 253
When darkness closes in 259
Wood-thrush 261
Yellow-throated vireo 262

Fire without matches 264
Fire without the bow 267

ON THE TRAIL
CHAPTER I
TRAILING
=What the Outdoor World Can Do for Girls. How to Find the Trail and
How to Keep It=
There is a something in you, as in every one, every man, woman, girl,
and boy, that requires the tonic life of the wild. You may not know it,
many do not, but there is a part of your nature that only the wild can
reach, satisfy, and develop. The much-housed, overheated, overdressed,
and over-entertained life of most girls is artificial, and if one does not
turn away from and leave it for a while, one also becomes greatly
artificial and must go through life not knowing the joy, the strength, the
poise that real outdoor life can give.
What is it about a true woodsman that instantly compels our respect,
that sets him apart from the men who might be of his class in village or
town and puts him in a class by himself, though he may be exteriorly
rough and have little or no book education? The real Adirondack or the
North Woods guide, alert, clean-limbed, clear-eyed, hard-muscled,
bearing his pack-basket or duffel-bag on his back, doing all the hard
work of the camp, never loses his poise or the simple dignity which he
shares with all the things of the wild. It is bred in him, is a part of
himself and the life he leads. He is as conscious of his superior
knowledge of the woods as an astronomer is of his knowledge of the
stars, and patiently tolerates the ignorance and awkwardness of the
"tenderfoot" from the city. Only a keen sense of humor can make this
toleration possible, for I have seen things done by a city-dweller at
camp that would enrage a woodsman, unless the irresistibly funny side

of it made him laugh his inward laugh that seldom reaches the surface.
To live for a while in the wild strengthens the muscles of your mind as
well as of your body. Flabby thoughts and flabby muscles depart
together and are replaced by enthusiasm and vigor of purpose, by
strength of limb and chest and back. To have seems not so desirable as
to be. When you have once come into sympathy with this world of the
wild--which holds our cultivated, artificial world in the hollow of its
hand and gives it life--new joy, good, wholesome, heartfelt joy, will
well up within you. New and absorbing interests will claim your
attention. You will breathe deeper, stand straighter. The small, petty
things of life will lose their seeming importance and great things will
look larger and infinitely more worth while. You will know that the
woods, the fields, the streams and great waters bear wonderful
messages for you, and, little by little, you will learn to read them.
The majority of people who visit the up-to-date hotels of the
Adirondacks, which their wily proprietors call camps, may think they
see the wild and are living in it. But for them it is only a big
picnic-ground through which they rush with unseeing eyes and whose
cloisters they invade with unfeeling hearts, seemingly for the one
purpose of building a fire, cooking their lunch, eating it, and then
hurrying back to the comforts of the hotel and the gayety of hotel life.
[Illustration: One can generally pass around obstructions like this on
the trail.]
At their careless and noisy approach the forest suddenly withdraws
itself into its deep reserve and reveals no secrets.