The Forest | Page 5

a pinch; it has been packed through the
roughest country; I have even pressed it into service as a sort of canoe
lining; but it is still as good as ever. Such a tent sometimes condenses a
little moisture in a cold rain, but it never "sprays" as does a duck shelter;
it never leaks simply because you have accidentally touched its
under-surface; and, best of all, it weighs no more after a rain than
before it. This latter item is perhaps its best recommendation. The
confronting with equanimity of a wet day's journey in the shower-bath
brush of our northern forests requires a degree of philosophy which a
gratuitous ten pounds of soaked-up water sometimes most effectually
breaks down. I know of but one place where such a tent can be bought.
The address will be gladly sent to any one practically interested.
As for the actual implements of the trade, they are not many, although
of course the sporting goods stores are full of all sorts of "handy
contrivances." A small axe--one of the pocket size will do, if you get
the right shape and balance, although a light regulation axe is better; a
thin-bladed sheath-knife of the best steel; a pocket-knife; a compass; a

waterproof match-safe; fishing-tackle; firearms; and cooking utensils
comprise the list. All others belong to permanent camps, or open-water
cruises--not to "hikes" in the woods.
The items, with the exception of the last two, seem to explain
themselves. During the summer months in the North Woods you will
not need a rifle. Partridges, spruce hens, ptarmigan, rabbits, ducks, and
geese are usually abundant enough to fill the provision list. For them,
of course, a shotgun is the thing; but since such a weapon weighs many
pounds, and its ammunition many more, I have come gradually to
depend entirely on a pistol. The instrument is single shot, carries a
six-inch barrel, is fitted with a special butt, and is built on the graceful
lines of a 38-calibre Smith and Wesson revolver. Its cartridge is the 22
long-rifle, a target size, that carries as accurately as you can hold for
upwards of a hundred yards. With it I have often killed a half-dozen of
partridges from the same tree. The ammunition is light. Altogether it is
a most satisfactory, convenient, and accurate weapon, and quite
adequate to all small game. In fact, an Indian named Tawabinisáy, after
seeing it perform, once borrowed it to kill a moose.
[Illustration: THIS OLD SOLDIER HAD COME IN FROM THE
LONG TRAIL TO BEAR AGAIN THE FLAG OF HIS COUNTRY.]
"I shootum in eye," said he.
By way of cooking utensils, buy aluminium. It is expensive, but so
light and so easily cleaned that it is well worth all you may have to pay.
If you are alone you will not want to carry much hardware. I made a
twenty-day trip once with nothing but a tin cup and a frying-pan.
Dishes, pails, wash-basins, and other receptacles can always be made of
birch bark and cedar withes--by one who knows how. The ideal outfit
for two or three is a cup, fork, and spoon apiece, one tea-pail, two
kettle-pails, and a frying-pan. The latter can be used as a bread-oven.
A few minor items, of practically no weight, suggest themselves--toilet
requisites, fly-dope, needle and thread, a cathartic, pain-killer, a roll of
surgeon's bandage, pipe and tobacco. But when the pack is made up,
and the duffel bag tied, you find that, while fitted for every emergency
but that of catastrophe, you are prepared to "go light."

III.
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE.

Sometime, no matter how long your journey, you will reach a spot
whose psychological effect is so exactly like a dozen others that you
will recognize at once its kinship with former experience. Mere
physical likeness does not count at all. It may possess a water-front of
laths and sawdust, or an outlook over broad, shimmering, heat-baked
plains. It may front the impassive fringe of a forest, or it may skirt the
calm stretch of a river. But whether of log or mud, stone or unpainted
board, its identity becomes at first sight indubitably evident. Were you,
by the wave of some beneficent wand, to be transported direct to it
from the heart of the city, you could not fail to recognize it. "The
jumping-off place!" you would cry ecstatically, and turn with unerring
instinct to the Aromatic Shop.
For here is where begins the Long Trail. Whether it will lead you
through the forests, or up the hills, or over the plains, or by invisible
water paths; whether you will accomplish it on horseback, or in canoe,
or by the transportation of your own two legs; whether your
companions shall be white or red, or merely the voices of the