Campsite

“ No matter where the old camper may be, no matter how long a time may have elapsed since last he slept in the open, no matter how high or low a social or official position he may now occupy, it takes but one whiff of the smoke of an open fire, or one whiff of the aroma of frying bacon, to send him back again to the lone trail. In imagination he will once more be hovering over his little camp-fire in the desert, under the shade of the gloomy pines, mid the snows of Alaska, in the slide rock of the Rockies or mid the pitch pines of the Alleghenies, as the case may be. ”

“ And the stricken camp is a melancholy sight. The woods have been despoiled; the stumps are ugly; the bushes are scorched; the pine-leaf-strewn earth is trodden into mire; the landing looks like a cattle-ford; the ground is littered with all the unsightly débris of a hand-to-hand life; the dismantled shanty is a shabby object; the charred and blackened logs, where the fire blazed, suggest the extinction of family life. Man has wrought his usual wrong upon Nature, and he can save his self-respect only by moving to virgin forests. ”

“ Assuming the lodge—there was but one—as the centre of the camp, it was placed upon the edge of a small grove, and fronting the stream. From the tent to the water’s edge, the plain sloped gently downward, like the glacis of a fortification. The smooth sward, that covered the space between the trees and the water, was the ground of the camp. On this could be seen the dusky warriors, some afoot, standing in listless attitudes, or moving about; others reclining upon the grass, and still others bending over the fires, as if engaged in the preparation of their evening meal. ”

“ Leaning against the bluffs hard by the camp is a low white cottage, with its paddock and pinfold, and the cattle are coming up, with bells toning irregularly as they feed and loiter on the way. The supper-horn sends forth a hoarse but mellow fugue in swells and cadences from the farm-house. Over all this sweet rural scene of mountain, valley, river and farm, and over the picturesque camp, with stock, tent and wagons, now brightened by the grace of a young girl, the twilight lingers like love over a home. ”

“ We are really very glad, though, when we come in sight of Camp. Even the loveliest drive won't satisfy a boy who is anxious to get to his tent. He wants to get out of his city clothes, and into Camp attire. What a beautiful scene opens before us! The lake, like a sheet of polished silver, rows of tents waiting for tenants, the tables already set for dinner, all the house help on hand smiling a welcome, and willing to make every one feel quickly at home. ”

“ Our camp was beside a rushing brook in a little glade that was tucked at the foot of towering mountains where no man track had been for years, if ever. Around us sighed the mighty pines of the limitless forest. Hundreds of miles away, beyond the barrier of nature, were human hives weary of the noise and strife of their own making. Here, alone in the solitudes, were two human atoms wandering on the trail of the hunted, and—the cook and I. I sat on my rubber bed in the tent and thought—there was nothing else to do—and was cold, cold from the outside in, and from the inside out. ”

“ To put a camp of this kind deep in the heart of the wilderness, and touch the wild life of the forest and lake with a most acceptable bit of civilisation in the form of grate fires, running water, bath-tubs, and inside toilet arrangements is decidedly a feat worthy to be spoken of when summer resorts are mentioned. To likewise supply a crowd of seventy-five guests with such an excellent table as we found provided for us, and to serve it so acceptably as to make one for a moment forget that he was beyond the bounds of civilisation, was likewise a feat of which the management should be proud. ”

“ It was almost sundown when we reached camp. All the hunters were in, and such a yowling as they set up! “Look who’s here! See who’s come!” they yelled. They went to work setting up tents and unloading wagons with a hearty good-will.
We are camped just on the edge of the pines. Back of us rises a big pine-clad mountain; [Pg 91] our tents are set under some big trees, on a small plateau, and right below us is a valley in which grass grows knee high and little streams come from every way. Trout scurry up stream whenever we go near. ”

“ In a camp everything is left unguarded, and nothing goes astray. If you, clothed in fine linen and arrayed in jewels, were to enter the tent of some half-starving Arab, and ask of him hospitality, he would share his last few coffee beans with you, and give you his couch, if by chance he was possessed of such a luxury, and speed you on your way the morrow, and believe me, you would not find a ribbon missing from your attire, even though you had left him without the wherewith to make his beloved coffee. ”

“ But it will not be long before it will be impossible to get a taste of real camping without taking long and expensive journeys, for every available rod of lake shore and river bank is being taken up and made populous with so-called camps, and the comfortable freedom and seclusion of a real camp are made impossible there. One desiring that might better pitch his tent in the back woodlot of a farm than in any such popular resort. ”

“ It is not worth while to say much about those hunters' camps which are built in the woods of stout poles, and covered with brush or the bark of trees: they are exceedingly simple in theory, and difficult in practice unless you are accustomed to using the axe. If you go into the woods without an axeman, you had better rely upon your tents, and not try to build a camp; for when done, unless there is much labor put in it, it is not so [Pg 70] good as a shelter-tent. You can, however, cut a few poles for rafters, and throw the shelter-tent instead of the bark or brush over the poles. ”

“ The whole place was a little amphitheater which humanity occupied perhaps the first time since creation.
Unpacking the burros, setting up the tents, making the camp, building the fire had used up the late remainder of the day which was theirs when they had arrived. Opportunity would come to-morrow to explore the country, to climb the range, to try the stream that tumbled down a succession of waterfalls to the right of the camp and roared and rushed merrily around its feet until, swelled by the volume of the brook, it lost itself in tree-clad depths far beneath. ”

“ We started again this morning and travelled ten miles to the main branch of the Grand river, which we crossed and camped. This is the last timber before crossing a prairie of 25 miles in width. Some go on intending to camp on the prairie, but the wind being cold, (from the north-west) we concluded to lay over until to-morrow. Our camping ground looks like the camp of an army. Horses, picketed tents, with the star spangled banners flying, wagons standing around, while lying by the side of logs and trees are brawny, sun-burnt men, sunning themselves, and taking their ease. ”

“ Then the elders settled themselves for the evening, glad to rest after their long ride, while the children raced up and down the camp, exploring all the nooks and corners of their little domain, before throwing themselves down on a pile of blankets to watch the full moon as it rose from a bank of cloud just above the low hills to the eastward, and threw its white light over their gay group. ”

“ Even as the coach rolled over the first mile of the journey, and grew pigmy in the distance so that the loitering dust cloud concealed it—even as it bumped across the outskirts of the camp—the crimson sun cast savage glances across the valley, slashing the iron roofs to life, livening the dingy walls of humpies and tents, and wooing the first flies from sleep. Over all the camp breakfast fires were growing, and men and women moved in and out of doors on the primal matters of the morning. ”

“ It is amazing to see how quickly these woodsmen can make a camp. Each one knew precisely his share of the enterprise. One sprang to chop a dry spruce log into fuel for a quick fire, and fell a harder tree to keep us warm through the night. Another stripped a pile of boughs from a balsam for the beds. Another cut the tent-poles from a neighbouring thicket. ”

“ A few pages from my wife's "Journal" of September fifteenth describes our camp at Lu-ho-we and our life on the road to Ta-li Fu.
We are sitting on the porch of an old, old temple. It is on a hilltop in a forest grove with the gray-walled town lying at our feet. The sun is flooding the flower-filled courtyard and throwing bars of golden light through the twisted branches of a bent old pine, over the stone well, and into the dim recesses behind the altar where a benevolent idol grins down upon us. ”

“ We look back with pleasure to the quiet camp in a gravel-pit on a hill-top far from the haunts of men—to the pitching of the tent by moonlight in a meadow where the mushrooms gleamed like snow, to be duly gathered for the frying-pan next morning by the host-in-himself, and in pyjamas. Nor are the sterner sides of caravan life to be forgotten—the calamity at the brow of a steep hill, where a nasty turn made the steady old wheeler for once lose his head and his legs ”

“ Camp kept moving from creek to creek in the valley of the Tongue, always finding abundant pasturage, plenty of fuel, and an ample supply of the coldest and best water. The foot-hills of the Big Horn are the ideal camping-grounds for mounted troops; the grass grows to such a height that it can be cut with a mowing-machine; cattle thrive, and although the winters are severe, with proper shelter all kinds of stock should prosper. ”

“ The camp by night, if no shelter were at hand, was in the forest, where the travelers tied their awnings to the branches of trees, built their fires, dressed their stolen meats, and lived so far as they could accomplish it on the fat of the land—for the most part of their way a rich and lovely land of vine-clad hills and opulent verdure. ”

“ Now that the park can be reached by railroad, all of the generals, congressmen, and judges are seized with a desire to inspect it—in other words, it gives them a fine excuse for an outing at Uncle Sam's expense.
CAMP ON YELLOWSTONE RIVER, YELLOWSTONE PARK, August, 1884.
OUR camp is in a beautiful pine grove, just above the Upper Falls and close to the rapids; from out tent we can look out on the foaming river as it rushes from one big rock to another. Far from the bank on an immense boulder that is almost surrounded by water is perched my tent companion, Miss Hayes. ”

“ My tent was always pitched a little apart from the confusion of the camp, and lying wrapped in rugs in my narrow camp-bed before the doors open to the night wind, I fell asleep in the silence of the limitless space of the desert, and woke only as the stars were fading in the sky. At first we were still in the grassland; the rolling country was covered with a thick mat of grass dotted with bright flowers, and yurts and men and herds abounded. ”

“ But that was not really a wilderness camp, and while I realize that in many of the trapping districts where it is necessary to camp, there are often these deserted buildings to be found, those who trap or hunt in such places are not the ones who must solve the real problems of camp building. It is something altogether different when we get far into the deep, silent forest, where the sound of the axe has never yet been heard, and sawed lumber is as foreign as a linen napkin in a trapper's shack. ”

“ It cannot be denied that the camp stove gives forth warmth and, with more comfort to the cook, serves to cook food of such tame flavor as one may get at home. But though the serviceable little imp roar till its black cheeks glow red as winter berries, it cannot make shanty or tent a camp in reality or impart to an outing its true flavor. This can only be given by the generous camp-fire, whose flames and embers no narrow walls inclose, whose hearth is on every side, whose chimney is the wide air. ”

“ From the camp, weaving in and out of cañons, densely wooded, murmurous with wilderness sounds, they mounted to the graded roadway leading to Summit City, climbed steeply through the further wooded slopes with nothing but the roadbed under them to give sign that they were not in the heart of a vast forest many miles from human habitation. ”

“ Behind the deacon seat, lounging upon the boughy bed, you may see half a dozen sturdy fellows—the bone and sinew of the crew—telling "yarns," or giving expression to the buoyancy of their feelings in a song, while the whole interior of the camp is lighted with a blazing hard-wood fire, which casts upward its rays through the capacious smoke-hole, gilding the overhanging branches of the neighboring trees. All within indicates health, content, and cheerfulness. ”

“ The men made camp in the slippery darkness, while we sat in the wagon, warm and dry, and thanked our stars there were still a few things left that men could do without our aid or competition. Presently a lantern flashed out, and spots of light shifted over them as they slaved—pounding tent-pegs, and scraping stones away from places where our blankets were to be spread, hacking and hewing among the wet willows, and grappling with stovepipes and tent-poles ”

“ Situated in a mountain cañon, which widened into a large valley after some miles, with towering cliffs, rugged passes and wild, picturesque scenery upon all sides, Last Chance Claim, or mining-camp, was scattered along for miles, the village portion, where the hotel, stores, and gambling-saloons were, being at the upper end. ”