Dec. 15, 1906.] FOREST AND STREAM. 
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Camp Don’t Hurry. 
I.—The Journey. 
We knew it was not regular or according to 
custom, and that we should have to quarrel 
with Robert Bruce about it most of the time, 
but we were going to do it for all that. 
The camping trip had been planning for a 
month or more, and now Henry Fredericks 
and I stood over a huge trunk, trying and fit¬ 
ting each article as we packed it, so that it 
'would take the least possible space. We could 
see that, large as the trunk was, it would be a 
tight squee'ze to get all that pile of utensils 
which lay in the corner of the summer kitchen 
inside of it. My wife kept constantly appear¬ 
ing at the door with more armfuls of blankets, 
storm-coats, and the hundred other things 
called for by our list. 
This list was one we had started when the 
idea of going first struck us. Whenever a 
member of the party thought of anything 
which would add to our comfort, it was writ¬ 
ten down, and then, when the article was pur¬ 
chased, a checkmark was put opposite, until 
at last every name was checked, and we waited 
the inevitable want to show 11s what had been 
forgotten. 
Henry and I were new at the business of 
camping, except for some very brief experi¬ 
ences,. and as we intended to stay at least a 
.month, we could not see why it would do any 
harm to have everything with us which might 
add to our enjoyment, for fun was just what 
we were starting out after. 
Robert Bruce was a camper of the orthodox 
■ kind, having fished, hunted and lived under 
tents in many parts of this country and Can¬ 
ada. He derided with a very great derision 
any attempt at making a camp convenient or 
comfortable. He would have been satisfied to 
live in the woods' the year round, with no 
more equipment than a tin basin and a tent 
about the size of a pillow case. Every time 
we spoke of carrying a new or uncommon 
article, his illy concealed disgust would take 
the form of a contemptuous sniff, and he would 
give us a look of hopeless despair, for we had 
all been chums since boyhood, and he had 
labored faithfully to train our sporting tastes 
in the direction he thought they ought to grow. 
To him, the list of requirements seemed a dis¬ 
tressingly amateurish institution, and he re¬ 
ferred to it as our “primer.” 
There were a great many of our “frivolous 
nicknacks” which had never been put on the 
list at all, but they were in the pile, and now 
we.were hurrying to get them hidden at the 
bottom of the trunk before Robert should ap¬ 
pear and express his opinjon. We had nearly 
succeeded in accomplishing this when he en¬ 
tered just in time to catch me stuffing some 
egg-cups down into the corners. That was the 
last straw, and he declared, with some vehe-* 
mence, that he would not go a step if such fool¬ 
ishness was to be indulged in. “The idea of 
egg-cups in camp!” he snarled. “Shall you 
take your dress suits?” 
We were not alarmed by his threat, for 
there was not rope enough in our village of 
Oswenango to hold him back from the trout 
fishing which was ahead. Besides, we were 
going into a section where eggs could be had, 
and it seemed to us that the cups would beat 
chasing a soft-boiled egg clear around a din¬ 
ner plate with a spoon. 
There was another part of the plan which 
did not please Robert, and that was the loca¬ 
tion we had selected. It was on the Esopus 
Creek, in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, 
and seemed to him not only too near the great 
cities, but the country, though very thinly 
settled, was by far too populous to conform 
to his idea of a camping site. He wanted to 
go away back into some Adirondack or Cana¬ 
dian wilderness, where we could be tortured 
by gnats and other insects, at the same time 
having to eat trout three times a day or starve. 
He preferred to be in a region so thickly 
wooded that -if we wished to fish a narrow 
brook, the time could be about evenly divided 
between fishing and climbing trees to get the 
flies untangled. The whole thing struck him 
as a nursery proposition, with the nurse absent 
at that. 
Henry and I had a very different notion of 
the Esopus, for we had seen it. We had often 
been in the valley, and had become acquainted 
with the streams, the mountains and the peo¬ 
ple; and we liked them all. Many were the 
farmhouses where we had received a kindly 
welcome and a good meal, as in years gone 
by we wandered at will through that region. 
There we should be in reach of fresh milk 
and other good things from the farms, and 
there were horses we could have to drive 
about the mountains when the fishing was 
poor or we tired of it. The prospective visits 
in the light of the camp-fire with some of our 
hardy old mountain friends were also a pleas¬ 
ant anticipation. 
The Esopus is a rough, rocky stream, just 
the ideal water for trout, and it is good-sized 
as well; often two or three hundred feet wide, 
so that it is not easily fished out, and is too 
turbulent for the less enthusiastic sportsmen 
to wade. We had often noticed that when 
parties of anglers came from New York or 
other cities, they always went right by the 
wide rapid parts of the creek, and did their 
fishing in the smaller streams up in the moun¬ 
tains. This led us to think that thev found 
easier work and greater numbers of trout; 
but we suspected that the. size did not run as 
large in those brooks. There are many places 
in the stream where the boulders are so thick 
that it is.possible to walk nearly across by 
stepping from one to the other. Some of them 
are as large as the smokehouse which stands 
in the rear of every farmhouse in the valley. 
We could not get it out of our minds that 
on the down-stream side of many of these 
boulders, big gamy trout were waiting for 
us, and we were going to them. 
We packed and crowded and poked until we 
could not get another thing into the trunk, and 
when, by all three standing upon it, and my 
wife manipulating the locks, it was finally 
closed, it sides bulged out like a boy full of 
green apples. There was enough stuff left over 
to fill.a suit-case for each one to be bothered 
with when we should start next day, besides 
having to carry the rods and boots in our 
hands and hang on to the dogs. 
Henry had a beautiful collie, which would 
make a good watchdog, and my half-grown 
Irish setter pup was to go along to get ac¬ 
quainted with the woods and be trained for 
the fall hunting. He was lank and clumsy, 
with a dismally solemn face and a bunch on 
the top of his head as big as a walnut. From 
a standpoint of beauty, there had to be some 
allowance made for him, but his eyes were 
honest and kind, and he learned easily, so we 
had become the best of chums. 
The next morning Robert and I took the 
early train from Oswenango, and went into the 
baggage car to be with the pup Terry. He 
had protested a little against embarking, but 
between pulling .and pushing, we had per¬ 
suaded him that it was the thing to do, and 
when he was finally tied to one side of the 
car, seemed awed into meekness by his new 
surroundings. He was a little surprised at first 
by the motion, and his wabbly legs could not 
accommodate themselves to the jar of the 
train, so he fell over two or three times before 
we reached Waracheno, where Henry lived. 
Henry had gone home after the packing was 
finished, and now he appeared with the collie 
Lassie. When Lassie came into the car Terry 
forgot all about his troubles, and strained at 
his collar in an effort to get to her and begin 
an acquaintance. She was rather ladylike and 
shrinking, and repelled'his advances by sharp 
snaps of her fox-like jaws. If they had got to 
have a little squabble before they could get on 
friendly terms, we did not want it to be in 
that place, and so kept them separated until we 
reached Angowara, where we were to change 
cars. 
The delay would be for a couple of hours, so 
after looking about the place and making the 
purchase of a few more articles which had 
been purposely postponed until this time, we 
went to a little restaurant to get lunch for 
ourseives and the dogs. The place was kept 
by a chronic trout fisherman, and as our host 
was not only proprietor, but cashier and waiter 
as well, he served us, petted the dogs and 
talked fish all at the same time. 
While we were there a newly married couple 
came in and asked how much it would cost to 
get two- bowls of boiled rice and milk, and 
were informed that the price was fifteen cents 
per portion. The groom pulled a small pack¬ 
age wrapped in a bit of newspaper from his 
pocket, and opening it,, displayed about a 
double handful of rice, which he said they 
had gathered from their clothing after the shower 
which followed the early morning wedding. He 
inquired how much would be deducted if they 
furnished their own rice, and upon being in¬ 
formed that no allowance could be made, be¬ 
came indignant and remarked that they would 
wait until they reached home for their dinner 
rather than submit to such unfair dealing, left 
the place. The proprietor said that the young 
man owned one of the best farms in the town, 
and had established quite a famous renutation 
locally for economy, although that is not ex¬ 
actly the way he expressed it. 
After lunch we started for the station, a half 
mile distant. The new bundles, added to what 
we had already been carrying, made quite a 
load, and the dogs yanked and pulled on their 
leashes, in their desire to’explore the strange 
country. Of course, they would have to be kept 
tied for a few days at camp or they might 
be lost; but we wanted to give them as much 
liberty as possible, and so we were using 
about fifteen feet of clothesline. Before \ve 
had gone far, they had worked most of this, 
line out through our hands, and had a good 
wide range, sufficient to take in every lamp 
post or tree on the route. 
When nearing the station we came to the 
end of a tight board fence, just as a rather 
severe looking middle-aged, lady was coming 
along on the walk. Henry’s sharp eyes had 
