IN THE NORTH WOODS 53 



the river higher up, and as he came out upon the 

 border of the stream found himself looking into 

 the muzzle of a gun. A party coming down the 

 river in a boat had heard the crashing in the woods 

 and, of course, thought of deer. All that saved 

 the Preacher was the fact that the man with the gun 

 did not belong to that group of invincible idiots 

 who shoot at a noise or at an unidentified moving 

 object. A week later, in a camp three miles away, 

 a young man was shot and instantly killed by his 

 camp-mate who saw something moving in the 

 bushes and fired on the chance of its being a deer. 

 At the close of the day the Hardware Man pre- 

 sented numerous and cogent reasons why we should 

 not spend another night in camp, and just before 

 sundown we struck the trail back to the cabin. 



After that we were content to make daily excur- 

 sions, returning to the cabin at night. Camp life is 

 delightful when proper provision has been made 

 for comfort; otherwise, it is a delusion and a snare. 

 We had not outfitted as we should, and our guide 

 either did not know how to make good our de- 

 ficiencies or was too lazy to undertake the job. 

 There is a deal of poetry about tent-dwelling, and 

 not infrequently that is all. It is possible to have a 

 tent that will not leak, pitched so that a heavy rain 

 will not turn your sleeping place into a pond; a 

 bough-bed so constructed that the boughs do not 

 poke you in the ribs all night; a commissary de- 

 partment that allows some little variety in the bill 



