Logging camp

“ Joe told them there was an old logging camp near by: they found the walls of the old camp (which was built of very large 227 logs) as good as ever; but the roof had fallen in. The deacon’s seat, as it is called (made of a plank hewed from a stick of timber, and which is always placed beside the fire in logging camps) , being well preserved with grease and smoke, still remained. It was but a light labor for so many skilful hands to repair the roof, scrape out part of the snow, and cover the remainder with brush. ”

“ Merriam’s idea to make as little change in appearance and arrangement as possible, that the camp might lose nothing of the romantic charm which [Pg 42] surrounds every logging camp when seen for the first time by eager boyish eyes.
Walter, following Billy up the trail, was ushered into the first of the three large cabins. Inside it was almost as rough as the outside, yet he was at once conscious of that indescribable sense of comfort and security which the log cabin in the forest alone possesses. ”

“ Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses and oxen will have to be shot to save them from starvation. The hunting will be mighty poor next fall, for the deer and other varmints will starve to death, too. ”

“ It looks as though some tramp or woods wanderer had broken in at some time, and the per [Pg 97] son or persons who have been here lately have repaired it," said Phil, dropping to his knees and examining the ground in front of the door.
"Why might not whoever has charge of this camp have fixed the door? It is very likely that when the logging operations were given up that some person in Hobart was put in charge to see that it was not destroyed, because logging can again be carried on in this section," inquired Dick. ”

“ As one strolls in the woods about the logging camps, most of the lumbermen are found to be interesting people to meet, kind and obliging and sincere, full of knowledge concerning the bark and sapwood and heartwood of the trees they cut, and how to fell them without unnecessary breakage, on ground where they may be most advantageously sawed into logs and loaded for removal. The work is hard, and all of the older men have a tired, somewhat haggard appearance. ”

“ But while the greater part of swamp life is more or less merry, there are occasional interruptions to the joyousness that abounds. Logging roads are generally laid out with due regard to the conveniences of level or gently descending ground. But in some instances the unevenness of the country admits only of unfavorable alternatives. Sometimes there are moderate rises to ascend or descend on the way to the landing; the former are hard, the latter dangerous to the team. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Later at night, however, when the fire has died down, and is no longer visible, one's forest neighbors will resume their usual occupations, and the wakeful camper may listen to the patter of hurrying footsteps, to the scratch of toe-nails on bark as a climber goes up or down a tree trunk, to the sniff of the inquisitive fellow who smells about the camp, to the chatter of the chap who talks to himself, to the loping or jumping noises, to the splashes in the brook, to the last despairing cry of some small animal as his life is being crushed out by his captor. ”

“ The iron-gray hair is white as the snow on the mountain-tops that environ him. The tall man is bent as a tree is bent when the winter snow lies heavily on its branches. The tawny boy is grown a man now. This is John Logan, the fugitive. The two homeless children have long since taken his place. [Pg 120]
And still the pick clangs on in that dark, damp tunnel that is always dripping, dripping, dripping, where it looks out at the glaring day, as if in eternal tears for the wasted life within. Yet now there is hope.
New life has been infused into this old camp of late years. ”

“ They seemed to call upon everybody to dismiss gloomy thoughts of what might have been; to crack jokes, sing songs, tell yarns, and be as merry as befitted men who had a log hut for a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest air stealing to them through an open doorway, and such a camp-fire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I remember one occasion when darkness and rain overtook me on the trail, and sent me to sleep in a deserted lumber camp; which is the most sleepless place on earth, I think, being full of creaks, groans, rustling porcupines, wild-eyed cats, spooks, mice, evil smells, and other distractions. Except in a downpour, any tree or bush offers more cheerful shelter. ”

“ But then it would not be so bad on the next occasion; and before many nights passed they, too, would be "dead to the world a short time after hitting the hay," as Lil Artha expressed it. Every fellow has to be broken in before he can sleep, when camping out for the first time; the great wilderness around seems peopled with countless unseen, but nevertheless present, creatures, which his lively imagination pictures as seeking to steal a march upon the camp, and either to purloin all their possessions or else eat them alive. ”

“ One has but to let his imagination run riot for a few moments to see this now deserted camp a scene of the greatest activity. The many shafts and tunnels, dump-piles and prospect-holes show how busy a spot it must have been. The hills about teemed with men. At night the log store—still standing—and the saloons—tents, shacks and log houses—were crowded with those who sought in the flowing bowl some surcease from the burden of their arduous labors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is Surprise Valley to the stranger eye.
Three score burnt men and a handful of shabby women here find living. They dig for the green copper hidden jealously in the bosom of the hills. From distant parts they have drifted, they stay awhile; again they drift; but the camp endures, and the wilderness is powerless to harm it. Forward and backward from the railroad, a hundred miles away, the weekly coach crawls on its journey, keeping open the track to civilization, and bringing such news and comforts as that world has leisure to send. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leaving Pierre's Hole the mountaineers scattered to their rocky fastnesses, but no sooner had they pitched camp on good hunting-grounds than the strangers who had shadowed them at the rendezvous came up. Breaking camp, the Rocky Mountain men would steal away by new and unknown passes to another valley. ”

“ Eight million feet of logs lay on the ice, filling Silver Creek bankful like a black flood for a long half-mile. Not that this had been accomplished without friction. Such jettison of humanity as drifts to a lumber-camp does not shake down to work in a day. From earth's four corners a gallows crew of Swedes, French, Russians, Irish, Canadians, Yankees drifted in, and for one month thereafter internecine war raged in the bunk-houses. Then, having bit, gouged, and kicked itself into some sort of a social status, the camp concentrated upon the boss. ”

“ Taking the party altogether, from one cause or another it is likely to strike camp sooner than was intended. 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 dibris 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. ”

“ Atop the hill was a Masai manyatta, very tiny, with indistinct crawling red and brown blotches that meant cattle and sheep. Beyond the hill, and through the opening in the ellipse, we could see to another new country of hills and meadows and forest groves. In this clear air they were microscopically distinct. No blue of atmosphere nor shimmer of heat blurred their outlines. They were merely made small.
Our camp was made in the open above a tiny stream. We saw wonderful sunrises and sunsets, and always spread out before us was the sweep of our plains and the unbroken ramparts that hemmed us in. ”

“ The depressing opposite of the fire that is the warm heart of the camp is the pile of green or rain-soaked fuel that in spite of all coaxing and nursing refuses to yield a cheerful flame. Shavings from the resin-embalmed heart of a dead pine and scrolls of birch bark fail to enkindle it to more than flicker and smoke, while the wet and hungry campers brood forlornly over the cheerless centre of their temporary home, with watery eyes and souls growing sick of camp life. ”

“ As this lumber began to pile up, he set the other Indians at work clearing a place among the heavier trees, but not far from the creek, for a sod house. It was to be some twenty feet square and was to house Colonel Snow’s lumbering gangs when they came in the following winter.
“‘Tenting on the old camp ground,’ ’s good enough, up here in the summer,” he said to the boys, “but with the mercury loafing around sixty below zero, canvas is no sort of shelter. A log house is better but it is almost impossible to make the caulking of that weather-proof. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When thus prepared, these people proceed up the rivers with the provisions to the place fixed on for their winter establishment, which is selected as near a stream of water, and in the midst of as much pine timber, as possible. They commence by clearing away a few of the surrounding trees, and building a camp of round logs, the walls of which are seldom more than four or five feet high; the roof is covered with birch bark or boards. A pit is dug under the camp, to preserve any thing liable to injury from the frost. ”

“ The position—an immense clearing in the centre of a pine-forest—is healthy. Nothing will be wanting: there is abundance of water, electric light will be installed, large windows will give light and air to the huts, the roofs will be thick and the walls made of bricks lined with wood.
Later, when the camp is on the point of being finished, the General who commands the district will let neutral notabilities and journalists visit it, and will present it to them as the future residence of those poor French prisoners over which Germany watches with a mother’s love. ”

“ The side walls and end wall are built up from the top of the shack to form a big, wide log chimney under which the open camp-fire is built on the ground. The Red Jacket is roofed with bark in the same manner as the New Brunswick and Christopher Gist and occupies the important position of the missing link between the true log cabin or log house and the rude log camp of the hunter. If you will look at Fig. ”