Dec. 22, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
trout fishing standpoint, while we watched the 
oval spots upon the water, betraying the hidden 
boulders, and saw the moon trying to reflect its 
face in the dull surface. When at early bed 
time we started back to the house, Robert owned 
up that he had never seen a better looking trout 
stream. 
After breakfast the next morning Mr. Brown 
hitched up and took our luggage to the campsite, 
and we got right to work. 
Two new. water-proof tents had come direct 
from the maker, as we did not want to trust any 
old ones for so long a stay, and these opened 
up all right. It did not take long to cut poles 
and pitch the smaller one, and then we put all 
the duffle inside of it, for the sky looked threaten¬ 
ing, and there are a good many things just as 
pleasant as starting camp with everything soaked. 
A light load of rough boards and scantlings had 
been brought from a saw mill up the valley, and 
now that our goods were housed, we got about 
laying the floor to put the larger tent on. The 
soil when it is covered and constantly walked 
upon gets dry and dusty, so that it adds an un¬ 
desirable proportion of dirt to any food that is 
kept there. The floor would prevent this annoy¬ 
ance, and also insure us against having the whole 
place turned into an impromptu footbath during 
a heavy shower. On top of this floor we set up 
the tent in a good permanent manner, for going 
out and redriving pegs in a rain or windstorm 
was no part of our programme. 
By this time it was noon, and we had done 
a good honest half day’s work and were hungry. 
There was no provision for cooking anything, and 
we did not want' to spend the time to arrange any 
yet, for there was plenty of work ahead. 
Opening the trunk, we pawed around among 
its contents until we found a knuckle of dried 
beef, a quarter of an English cheese, a loaf of 
bread and some doughnuts; also quite uninten¬ 
tionally a small butcher knife, but luckily handle 
end first. Laying these things on the board pile, 
and sticking the knife point into the wood, within 
handy reach of all, we had about as good a dinner 
as I can remember. Then we went to a spring, 
and scooping out the dead leaves with our hands, 
and waiting for the water to run clear, we had a 
drink. Robert cut a couple of beech logs, and 
we lugged them in front of the tents where he 
went at work fixing for a cooking fire. Henry 
and I made places to “put things,” while Uncle 
Nick cut small pines and hemlocks, dragging 
them into camp to pick the boughs for bedding. 
Henry took a couple of boards about six feet 
long and put a series of shelves between them 
to form an open cupboard. This we set up in 
the back end of the main tent and tied it to the 
rear pole. It worked nicely, except that it swayed 
some with the movement of the pole, and in 
windy days shed dishes considerably. 
After Robert had placed the logs parallel, and 
about a foot apart, he drove crotches into the 
ground between them at each end. Into these 
crotches he laid a hickory pole with some wooden 
pot hooks on it, and then used the balance of the 
little beech tree to build a camp-fire, according to 
the regulation plan. 
We had located right at the edge of a table¬ 
land, lying in the angle formed bv the Esopus 
and a small creek which flows into it. This table¬ 
land is nearly level, and perhaps thirty feet above 
the stream, being separated from it by a low 
sandy flat about two hundred feet wide, which 
is covered by a growth of small maple trees. The 
plateau where the tents stood was timbered with 
second growth beech, pine and hemlock, not 
large enough to be dangerous in a storm, but 
just the right size to furnish nice shade. 
There was a nearly round spot, some fifty feet 
across, on which nothing grew, and the fire was 
in the center of this, with the tents facing it, 
and the trees in the rear. The descent from 
the tableland to -the flat was very abrupt, and 
at the bottom of this declivity were two small 
springs. While the others were busy, I dug 
these springs out—one of them good and deep, 
so that it could be dipped from without roil¬ 
ing, and one flat and shallow to hold pails of 
milk, butter, eggs and the like. The water 
was very cold, and this made a handy sort of 
refrigerator. 
Along toward night Robert quit work, and 
taking a rod with him, went a little way up 
the small creek to see what the fishing pros¬ 
pects were like. The main stream was still 
too high, but the brook had fallen a good deal 
and looked propitious. 
We started a fire in order to have a good 
bed of coals ready to cook supper on, and 
then went to a neighboring farmhouse and 
engaged a daily supply of milk, making a con¬ 
tract with a small boy to bring it nights and 
mornings. By the time we were back and 
had the cooking utensils unpacked and hung 
upon thd nails driven in the trees, Robert re¬ 
turned with four fair-sized trout. He said 
there were plenty of trout in the stream, but 
he believed they would run larger in the 
Esopus. We had laid out some slices of salt 
pork and a pan of flour, for it is fairly safe 
when Robert goes after trout to presume such 
things will be needed. 
After supper we picked browse and told 
stories until bed time, and when the dogs 
had been tied to the tent poles, and the boughs 
covered with blankets, we turned in and—well, 
it was morning. 
I heard a crow cawing in the tall pines. He 
may have been warning the balance of the 
flock against the intruders, or calling them 
to come and look us over, but in either case 
he was keeping a good safe distance. He 
looked the picture of a target, only too far 
away for the small rifle which we had, and I 
wondered if I could cut down the distance 
enough to get a fair shot, without scaring him 
o-ff. I pulled on my shoes and put in a car¬ 
tridge, starting out in an opposite direction 
to get behind a clump of undergrowth. It 
took some wiggling and twisting, but I was 
almost in range before the brush ran out, so 
that he saw me and flew away. However, I 
had learned one thing, and that was that a 
cotton-flannel night-shirt is not the best sort 
of craft to navigate a blackberry patch in. 
After breakfast, we went at the camp work 
again. While Robert and Henry built beds 
for themselves, I put some legs under a board 
and they christened it a wash-stand. I had 
never built a bed in camp, and wanted to wait 
and see how the others did it; for, while I had 
often slept on one where I could not see the 
defects, I knew they were there for all that. 
The arrangement we used during the previous 
night had been fairly comfortable, only I had 
a hole about the size of a hard boiled egg 
under one shoulder blade, where a pine limb 
had intruded. 
They each built a board frame of suitable 
size, with pieces of scantling in the corners, 
extending far enough below the frame to form 
legs. Then poles and small branches were 
put in the bottom, and the whole box-like 
structure being filled with pine an-d hemlock 
boughs, it .was covered over with a blanket. 
The beds looked comfortable, and had an ad¬ 
vantage over the ordinary kind made of logs 
in being portable; but I was a little afraid of 
the plan, and determined upon a change, even 
though it was not regular. It seemed to me 
that as the boughs settled down and one got 
careless about a.dding more, the boards would 
stick up and be “laying for” a fellow’s face and 
knee-caps every time he happened to roll 
over. 
Building a net-work of small poles, I sup¬ 
ported it upon legs made from a sapling about 
the size of my wrist, and then braced the legs 
according to a sort of hit-and-miss design, 
until it would usually stand alone. The whole 
thing was springy and wabbly, but when it was 
piled with. carefully picked boughs, it made a 
most delightful bed. There was only one 
trouble about it and that was the lack of side 
pieces to keep the boughs from sliding off, a 
journey which for one or two nights I oc¬ 
casionally made with them. This was ' even¬ 
tually remedied by tacking one side of a long 
piece of cloth clear around the frame and 
then drawing the other edge up over the 
browse and sewing it with wrapping twine. 
They all had a good deal to say while I 
was working at it. Henry claimed -that it was 
“architecturally deficient”; Robert urged tak¬ 
ing out a patent, while Uncle Nick suggested 
98 I 
that it looked like a cross between a haystack 
and a sawbuck. 
By the middle of the afternoon the camp 
was well enough organized, so that we felt 
more at liberty. While the Esopus was yet 
in no condition to fish, Robert said he would 
take his rod and explore it a little, in the hope 
of getting something for supper. Henry took 
the dogs and started out to investigate the 
country, intending to bring up at the village 
and get some supplies and equipments, which 
the two days’ experience had shown were still 
lacking. 
Up the creek a few hundred feet the sandy 
flat ran out, and the stream was right at the 
foot of the steep bank. The land was higher 
here, so that it was fifty feet down to the 
water, which was perpetually wearing the 
bank away and leaving it full of loose rocks 
just ready to fall. This part of the plateau 
was covered with tall/pines, and at the edge 
there was a fine place to lie in the shade and 
watch the clouds and the mountains. We 
looked up the Esopus a long distance from 
here, and as far as we could see it was one 
wide rift, thickly speckled with boulders, 
which were just beginning to show their 
heads, now that the water was falling. At 
several places great chunks of the bank, car¬ 
rying large trees with them, had slid down 
and were combatting the current, but the 
struggle would not last long. The soil was 
washing away, and next spring, or perhaps 
the next heavy rain, the trees would be torn 
loose and floated off. Some of the limbs were 
in constant motion, being alternately borne 
down by the current, and springing back into 
the air. Four great peaks of the mountains 
were in the background, and we named the 
spot, The Observatory. 
From here the path ran through the pine 
woods to the home of Mr. Chatman. The 
house was a curious structure, standing right 
on the edge of a bank, so that one side was 
only a single story high, with a porch looking 
■out into the woods, while the front was two 
stories with a double veranda facing a wide, 
flat meadow, which lay between it and the 
highway. At one end of the house an out¬ 
door cellar was built into the bank, and the 
whole place had an air of homelike comfort. 
Mr. Chatman was a jolly sort of man, and 
had given cheerful consent to the camping 
project. Neither he nor his family ever lost 
a chance to do anything which would make 
our stay more pleasant. He was a great 
joker, and we had to keep our wits about us, 
to come out anywhere near even on that score. 
Though living by the side of a trout stream 
he never fished, but was fond of roaming 
about the woods with a gun, and scarcely a 
day passed that he did not find time to gratify 
this taste. 
On the flat were several springs, forming a 
little brook, which we crossed on a sluice 
bridge. We could see plenty of young trout 
under, the bridge; and one quite large 
one, becoming frightened, darted off. down 
stream. 
As we crossed the meadow to the railroad 
track, which ran between us and the highway, 
we had a good chance to watch the different 
dispositions of dogs. They had been tied 
most of the time while we were busy starting 
camp, but it was our ‘intention to let them 
loose as soori as we had time to go about 
with them enough, so they would know the 
way back. This was the first excursion, and 
Lassie, the collie, stayed close to us, and did 
not seem to be of a very investigating turn 
of mind- Terry showed his hunting birth by 
running in every direction, and there was not 
a stump or fence corner within calling'dis¬ 
tance which he did not explore. He would 
race madly about, in and out of the under¬ 
brush which skirted our path on one, side, 
but when I whistled he stopped short, looked 
toward me inquiringly, and came on a keen 
run, just near enough so that I could touch 
him, and then off he would go again in a new 
direction. He was altogether too busy to 
spend time visiting. If the “ruling passion 
strong in death” saying is true of men, it is 
