THE ART OF CAMPING 
began to nod we found ourselves slipping 
downward into the bed of a tiny stream 
that trickled from the glacier, so we had no 
difficulty in making up our minds to start 
for the summit considerably earlier than 
we had anticipated. Although neither of 
us enjoyed the experience at the time, the 
beauty of that scene and the weird silence 
of those Northern mountains left an im- 
pression that we are not likely to forget. 
The three prime necessities for a good 
camp-site are wood, water and shelter. 
If you have pack animals, you will have to 
add a fourth item to this list—grass. 
Wood is generally very abundant in the 
North and East, and very often almost 
entirely lacking on the plains and in the 
Southwest. Water never fails in the North- 
ern Rockies and Coast Range and in the 
region north and east of the Great Lakes. 
But on the prairie it is sometimes extremely 
difficult to find water that is fit to drink, 
and in the Southwest it is often impossible 
to find any. Yet water one must have, 
and all woodsmen look back with horror 
upon nights they have passed in “dry 
camps.” In the Southern States much of 
the water is very dangerous, on account of 
the bacteria it contains, but even poor 
water may be rendered safe by boiling, 
if it is merely microbes that we have to 
fight. But when the water is strongly 
alkaline, as is the case on the plains, boiling 
will not render it fit for human use. 
Strangely enough, alkaline water ice is 
pure and fit for use. In summer the waters 
of such rivers as the Red River of the North, 
the Saskatchewan and the Athabasca are 
very poor, being decidedly alkaline and 
muddy, but the ice is as clear as crystal, 
and when melted gives soft water that is 
fit for culinary uses. One can often tell 
before coming to a sink, or buffalo wallow, 
whether the water will be good or bad, by 
looking at the ring of surrounding vegeta- 
tion. When the water plants and grass are 
of a healthy green, the water is generally 
fit to drink, but when a rusty brown rim 
surrounds the water, it is, nine times out 
of ten, brackish. Of course, when a lake 
is decidedly alkaline it is surrounded by 
beds of glistening soda, which shine like 
ice in the sunlight, and then only the wild- 
fowl and the desert animals, whose insides 
253 
seem to be made of cast iron, are able ‘to 
make use of it. 
Possibly a majority of the readers of this 
article who have camped in the open do 
their camping where the canoe is the means 
of transportation, so that most of the 
troubles that beset the path of the prairie 
traveler are unknown to them. Water, and 
good water, too, pure as crystal and cool 
as the foaming lager beloved by the 
Teuton, are theirs by the very nature of 
things, and wood is not often lacking. 
Brush and tent poles are also available, 
and the one trouble they have to face is 
often the impossibility of getting a good, 
dry, camping ground, and one yet free from 
boulders and rocks. It is best to camp at 
least two full hours before dusk. This 
gives you time to get your tent properly 
pitched, your wood cut and your supper 
cooked. It is miserable work if you find 
yourself still at it and stumbling about in 
the dark, and it makes a labor of what an 
hour or two earlier would have been an 
amusement. If you are new at camping, 
be very sure to cut enough wood and a 
sufficiency of boughs. The form that is ac- 
customed to sleep on a hair mattress does 
not take kindly to a couch on the bare 
earth. But I do not think that any one 
could complain of a bed made of two feet 
of freshly pulled fir boughs, neatly arranged 
with the butts all in one direction, and 
having a spring equal to that of any bed 
turned out bya factory. Upon these boughs 
you should lay a waterproof sheet, with the 
rubber side downward, then, with your 
blankets or sleeping bag, whichever you 
prefer, you should not be long in- wooing 
Morpheus when once you turn in. All 
this providing, of course, that you are 
cruising where fir trees are abundant. 
A light rubber “‘blow bed,” or pneumatic 
mattress, is even then preferred by some 
campers. 
It is always warmer on the top of a knoll 
than at the foot. The cold air sinks into 
the hollows, the warmer strata floating 
above it, and the difference is most pre- 
ceptible in that chilly hour which precedes 
the dawn. The canvas of a tent becomes 
soaked with the dew, and a man who is 
unaccustomed to sleeping out often awakes 
shivering, notwithstanding two or three 
