For the Benefit of City Nimrods 



In asking you if you ever slept in a tent, here again 

 it is important for him to have the truth. If you are 

 inexperienced he will so plan his trip that there will 

 be comfortable tenting-sites each night, /-and he will 

 start to make camp much earlier than he would with 

 a seasoned passenger upon whom he could depend for 

 considerable assistance. 



As you sit on a stump and watch him deftly manipulate 

 his glittering, razor-sharp axe, magically shaping tent- 

 pegs and poles, making chips for the cook-fire and cutting 

 logs for the later camp-fire, you are fascinated. A strong 

 temptation steals upon you to pick up the axe and show 

 what you can do. 



Don't do it. 



There are two good reasons for resisting the primitive 

 instinct most men and boys seem to have for fooling with 

 sharp tools. In the first place, you are sure to make a 

 misstroke and dull the axe on a hard knot, or drive it into 

 the ground, and so nick it that nothing but a grindstone 

 can make it again fit for use. As your comfort, food, 

 and safety depend on fire and shelter, the axe is the most 

 important tool that your guide has to use, and there is 

 no action you can take that will make you so unpopular 

 as experimenting with that essential implement. A 

 still better reason is the danger of cutting yourself and 

 bleeding to death before you can be removed to civiliza- 

 tion and surgical assistance. When you consider that 

 even professional choppers in the lumber woods often 

 maim themselves beyond repair by unavoidable slips 

 of the axe, it is patently a poor plaything for the un- 

 initiated. 



In overhauling your clothes, blankets, etc., your guide 

 wants to be sure that he is not taking you into the woods 

 with more dunnage than the canoe or he can carry, but 

 with suitable quality and quantity to keep you from 



