CAMPS 99 



car. The last is unusual, but the practice is increasing. Trailers, too, are 

 somewhat out of the ordinary at Dolly Copp, and at mountain camps 

 everywhere; the real trailer swarm is found generally on flatter lands and 

 along straighter roads, as in Florida. Most forests elsewhere report a general 

 diminution of trailer outfits during the past few years. 



The man with his bed in the back of his car is a retired blacksmith 

 from New Mexico. He travels alone, and has been traveling so, and camp- 

 ing, for the better part of 5 years now. A leathery, taciturn, but entirely 

 friendly citizen, 48 years old, he spends his summers north, in New England 

 and the north woods of the middle country; generally has a whirl at Florida 

 and, returning, camps for the late winter and early spring on the desert 

 of his home State, New Mexico. "I've got a little money in the sock," he 

 says. "Nobody looks to me for a living. So it just occurred to me that I 

 didn't have to work any more and could travel around and see the country. 

 It's a good life. I like it." He carries a small tarpaulin to shelter his dun- 

 nage, outside the car; and strings this up as a shelter in hot weather. But 

 his home is the car. Its interior arrangement makes even a Pullman berth 

 seem wasteful of space. The gun rack, for instance, lets down under the bed 

 at night; and his whole camp is as neat and handy as a good wife's kitchen. 



The tented party is a mother and three sons, aged 8, 11, and 16. They 

 are from Virginia, and are just completing a swing that took them to the 

 Southwest, California, the Northwest, and East again by northern routes. 



These are rather well-to-do people, one gathers; the mother has traveled 

 abroad; her accent is cultivated. The boys are all as friendly as can be, but 

 a certain well-bred aloofness tempers personal disclosures at first. This 

 diminishes as evening falls and the fire burns higher. Father, you learn, is 

 at his business back in Richmond. He and Mother wanted their boys to see 

 their own country, the great West especially, this summer; and this was the 

 way it could be done. "Really, you know," says the mother, "it's amazing! 

 One can't imagine! Such size, and vigor, and friendliness, and so inexpen- 

 sive, if you stay at camps." "A fellow doesn't know what the United States 

 is until he gets over the mountains," says the 16-year-old son. 



The three camping parties are bunched together; their shelters almost 

 touch, at the very center of great, bare, Dolly Copp Forest Camp. "It's 



