A GIRL'S CAMP LIFE IN THE ROCKIES. 



181 



fatigue of a sunny day. The lake, that 

 had been so angry and rough all through 

 the spring months, was calm and still, a 

 joy to the oarsman. 



We had taken canvas cots with us, quite 

 an offering to the shrine of luxury we 

 thought ; but we soon went back to the 

 softer, sweeter fir boughs, so close to the 

 warmth of Mother Earth. On those we 

 slept until late in November; in fact, until 

 the snow broke the tents down over us, and 

 we were glad of the shelter of the scarcely 

 completed shack we were building near. 



We ate our Thanksgiving grouse in 

 camp, and crossed the coulee the next week 

 in a snowstorm so blinding and heavy that 

 the driver lost his way and had to give his 

 horses their heads. To their good sense 

 we owed a safe, though tardy, arrival. 



The next year we made the trip on a 

 construction train on the Great Northern, 

 and after that our camp life had many of 

 the. comforts that go with a shelter of 

 boards and tar paper. Yet my father and 

 I sometimes longed for our old days of 

 genuine roughing it, and would start off 

 for a day or 2 on little expeditions of our 

 own. Together we worked through the 

 jungle, scrambled up the face of the rocky 

 shores, or crawled and climbed many a 

 mile along the creeks, with rod and axe 

 and gun, or fished the lake for rainbow 

 and Dolly Varden trout, and plundered the 

 banks of flowers. 



People sometimes ask me what a woman 

 finds to do in camp. Why, the days are not 

 long enough for the many pleasures of 

 camp life. A woman has all the pastimes 

 of a man in camp, except the very long, 

 hard tramps, and she has her own as well. 

 No matter how unskilled her fingers, they 

 will twitch to hold a pencil, even though 

 the poor results are made but for ridicule 

 or destruction. If she has a camera, to the 

 enjoyment it will afford there is no end. 

 She will find flowers too new and charm- 

 ing to be thrown aside, and the old books 

 and magazines will press them. Then the 

 dried blossoms will require mounting. In 

 one season I pressed over 70 varieties of 

 wild flowers that sprang, each apparently 

 from the ashes of the last, near our camp. 

 There are whole days for reading and writ- 

 ing, while one rests from a hard tramp ; 

 and from all these things the attention will 

 wander to the interesting animal life about. 



In our first camp I once pretended to 

 read, in order to watch the maneuvers of 

 a chipmunk with a taste for gingersnaps. 

 Softly he crawled down to the cupboard — 

 a soap box nailed to a tree — watched his 

 chance to slip over the side and break the 

 paper bag that held the dainties, seized one 

 and started up the tree, only to be met, all 

 too soon, by an obtrusive twig, that dashed 

 the treasure from his teeth to the ground. 



Over and over he tried this, until he at last 

 solved the problem by eating his way 

 nearly to the center of a gingersnap, where 

 he got a sufficiently firm hold to convey it 

 safe to his home. 



Like the chipmunk, the human dweller 

 in the woods soon discovers how much or 

 how little native genius he has for making 

 much of his small materials. He learns 

 what excellent shovels can be made from 

 a cleft stick and a flattened tomato can ; 

 that an ideal refrigerator is a box with a 

 small opening at each end lowered half its 

 depth in a brook. Of course once in a 

 while the cook may find Madame Snake 

 taking a nap in its shelter; but if the cook 

 be a woman she will soon learn to cover 

 her dishes closely, and the poor snake will 

 slide down the stream as soon as she is 

 discovered. 



That Eden of ours was unlike the origi- 

 nal in that respect. Mention is made of 

 but one serpent there. We killed in our 

 yard about one every other day for 3 

 months, the first spring we were in 

 the house. Where they had been the 2 sea- 

 sons before, when we had no shelter, no one 

 knows ; for one August we used to go hunt- 

 ing them several miles down the lake. To 

 start out deliberately for a rockslide to see 

 how many rattlers one can get in an after- 

 noon is a different proposition from having 

 them shot in the path, within 3 feet of one's 

 door, especially when one happens to be set- 

 tled on the doorstep for an afternoon's 

 reading. It was the only life we made a 

 habit of taking. We fished only enough for 

 our needs and those of a friend down the 

 lake. In the warmer months the trout all 

 seek the cool depths of the upper lake. 

 When we occasionally needed fresh meat 

 the men brought down venison from the 

 rocks and valleys above us ; and a pair or 

 2 of goat horns came in one early spring 

 as trophies. The pretty creatures we came 

 on while rowing close to the shore at twi- 

 light just raised a horned head and looked 

 at us with large, startled eyes before quietly 

 trotting off up the gulch, with now and 

 then a look around, until we were out of 

 sight. Then father would rest on his oars 

 and say, "How could any one shoot that !" 



What I always looked for and dreaded I 

 never saw — a bear — though we came on 

 fresh signs of monster bears more than 

 once, and the bark torn off a dead tree 

 seemed scarce an hour old. Bruin in the 

 National Park, that stole our bacon at 

 night, was all I heard, and the pet cub in 

 a rancher's dooryard, now and then, all I 

 saw. 



The last year I was in camp I saw that 

 grandest and most appalling of sights, a 

 forest fire. For 4 months I had looked 

 across a mile of water to the base of "Old 

 Sawtooth," and had let my eyes wander up 



