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THE ART OF CAMPING 59 
so it makes little difference whether the 
game is skinned or not. But, happily, one’s 
appetite is so excellent that a skinned drum- 
stick fried in pork fat seems a morsel fit for 
the gods. 
- Bookmen tell us a lot about wrapping 
birds or fish in clay and cooking them in 
the embers. Unfortunately, when I have had 
the birds and fish the clay was lacking, and 
when I struck a rich deposit of this unctuous 
earth, I did not have the game, so that I 
have never been able to experiment in this 
direction, much as I should like to. Yet, I 
cannot think that it would be a very prac- 
tical way of cooking, for reasons that I have 
outlined. I have never seen Lo, the Indian, 
ever attempt anything of the sort. If he is 
without a frying-pan or a kettle, he toasts 
~his game before the fire on a skewer. What 
he would do if he were well provided with 
clay of the right tenacity I do not know. 
Perhaps he would act as the books say he 
should. 
I remember reading, somewhere, that a 
grouse, wrapped in wet newspaper, could 
be toasted on the live coals, and left to cook, 
with the assurance that after a time you 
could knock off the charred paper, feathers 
and skin, discovering a succulent morsel. 
Well, perhaps so. 
"Many years ago, an estimable English- 
woman published a book on household 
management, and in it she included a recipe 
for “‘jugged hare.” She began by saying, 
_ “¥irst—catch your hare.’”? Nor must we 
forget that before we can cook game or fish 
we must catch it. For this purpose we 
require firearms and fishing-tackle. Much 
small game secured in the bush is foully 
murdered. Men who would scorn to take a 
pot shot when shooting over their setters or 
pointers, will aim like artillerymen at some 
wretched grouse clucking indignantly 
within ten yards of their feet. The law of 
the wilderness is that the stronger must 
devour the weaker, and as a man—even 
when armed only with a $5 trade gun—is 
much stronger than a grouse, he proceeds 
to put the law into force. It is astonishing 
what a large amount of game can be brought 
into camp with the aid of a .22 calibre 
pistol. Sometimes, when hunting caribou, 
I have carried a .22 calibre revolver, and I 
recall that on one short trip I secured eight- 
een grouse with it. Sometimes we would 
not even trouble to shoot, relying upon a 
whipcord noose, which we would affix to the 
end of a pole that we cut as occasion re- 
quired. It is only on very still, warm days 
that you can do anything with the ruffed 
grouse with a noose, but the Canada grouse 
hardly ever escapes the snare of the fowler. 
Now, according to the ethics of true sport, 
these things should not be done, but, my 
friends, the wilderness must feed its way- 
farers, and if you are far enough back and 
in need of meat, you would undoubtedly be 
perfectly justified in securing grouse by pot 
shots or running nooses. I would only in- 
sist, however, before I give you absolution, 
that you be ready to affirm that the birds 
were for your own use, and not for sale or 
export. There is little fear of your ever 
being tempted to break the law by snaring 
or shooting too many. 
Grouse are far more plentiful around the 
clearings and near the farms than they are 
in the deep woods, where their food is too 
scant and the number of their enemies too 
great to permit of any very heavy stock. 
Sometimes, early in the season, one may 
meet with a good many birds, but at such 
times fish are abundant and easily caught, 
and the grouse, being but half grown, are 
not desired. Later on, when the fish de- 
cline to bite and the grouse are big, full- 
feathered fellows, you will find that: the 
foxes and the martens and the minks and 
the hundred and one other four-footed and 
winged vermin have taken such heavy toll 
that you rarely put up many birds in the 
course of a day’s tramp. 
(To be continued.) 
