FOREST AND STREAM 
575 
Women In Camp 
By “Switch Reel.” 
W E had a nice party—a really congenial little 
crowd, with the threads of intimacy 
stretching back to boyhood and girlhood 
days. There were two teams and two singles, 
Willie and Jane and Fred and Babe in double 
harness, with Bill and myself foot-loose and 
fancy free. 
One glorious day in September Willie and I 
bowled up to the little hotel in the Adirondacks 
and were welcomed with great joy by the rest 
of the hunting party. The weather was fine, the 
leaves were going off, the ground was moist, 
the woods full of deer and we had over forty 
cartridges apiece! Bright and early—no! It 
was before daylight next morning when we were 
up and doing. Breakfast by lamplight in the 
kitchen while Babe and Jane were trying to get 
another nap before the regular breakfast, and 
away we went in high spirits, rattling up the 
lake road on the buckboard. And at nightfall 
we came rattling back empty handed and tired. 
Willie and Fred were kissed and fed and coddled 
a bit and put to bed. Bill and I went to bed 
early, too. 
Tuesday ditto. 
Wednesday and Thursday also. 
Friday the plans were the same as for pre¬ 
vious days—an early start. But Willie wasn’t 
up for breakfast when the rest of us were ready. 
We sent Jud, the boss guide, around to his win¬ 
dow to hurry him up. Jud returned with the 
lucid information that “Jane was a ’poundin’ of 
him and he’d be out soon,” and we thought 
women were the nicest little old things in the 
world to have along on a hunt. That morning 
about nine o'clock a fat doe came to see me, and 
stayed right there until the buckboard drove up 
to take her to the hotel, and I went in on the 
front seat with a sprig of golden rod stuck in 
the barrel of my good old 38-72. 
Saturday we fished. 
Sunday we tried to be nice to the ladies. 
Monday, Tuesday and the rest of the week 
we hunted, and night after night came in licked. 
I was honestly sorry for Bill and Willie and 
Fred. We went off to another lake to camp 
in a little shack, and it rained, and we hunted 
faithfully, and the cots and bedding got wet, 
and we laughed, and the women-folks back at 
the hotel worried and stewed and were sure we 
would starve because we forgot the eggs, and 
we had a lot of fun and got nothing. 
Then we packed up and returned to the city 
for another year. Plans were all laid on the 
way home for the next hunt, of course. You 
know how that is? Jane and Babe were red 
hot for it too, but I don’t know why. 
The long winter soon set in and o’nights I’d 
go over the hunt. After awhile I got out the multi¬ 
plication table and multiplied us four plus Jud 
and Charlie, the guides, and Joe, the buckboard 
artist (who was a famous woodsman as well), 
by twelve days hunting, and it figured up equal 
to eighty-four day’s work for one man to get 
one doe! 
Along in March the Sportsman’s show broke 
out, and over there I met up with an old Maine 
friend by the name of Billy Soule. I’d fished 
at Billy’s camps, and knew I could trust him. 
Billy said he would guarantee every man a shot 
and after that it was up to the man. 
“Inside of a week, Billy?” 
“A week!” he exclaimed. “You’ll see a dozen 
deer in a week. I’ll guaiantee four men shots 
at eight bucks in two weeks.” Eighty-four days 
for one doe! A buck a week to a man! 
I went right down town and saw Bill. I had 
pockets full of picture books and maps and 
camp advertisements, and Bill, being a rational 
bachelor, amenable to lucid reasoning and will¬ 
ing to get a deer, agreed with me that Maine 
was the place. Then I talked to Willie. Willie 
was full of other things at that time and put 
off a decision. Summer came and the Fred-and- 
Babe combination announced that they couldn’t 
join the hunt that fall. So Bill and I got after 
Willie, and at the expense of much breath con¬ 
vinced him that he could get a deer in Maine. 
Thereupon I promptly wrote and engaged guides 
and cabins. 
Jane was heartbroken when she heard of it, and 
she made Willie sit up. But what business she 
had to object I positively could not see. Women 
in camp were all right. We had taken her and 
Babe along on the hunt the year before, and 
they had had a perfectly glorious time. They 
admitted it and insisted upon it. We would 
take Jane with us to Maine and let her have 
another glorious time amid new scenes and under 
a new environment. She should know what life 
in the forest was like. She should sleep in a 
regular log cabin upon the shores of a lake with 
a name it would take two days to pronounce 
properly. 
' “But I want to go to dear old Brant!” she 
wailed. Great Scot! We’d been there several 
years fishing and one year hunting. And we’d 
taken her and Babe along to give them a good 
time and we thought they enjoyed seeing us 
enjoy ourselves! Mistake, mistake, old man. No 
such thing. They’d been taking us up there and 
watching us go through the motions. I began 
to get a glimmer of understanding. 
Nevertheless Bill and I stood our ground 
firmly and kept Willie in line. It was a case 
of go to Maine with us or he’d go to the Adiron¬ 
dacks alone with Jane. Along in August the 
Fred-and-Babe combination came to the front 
and announced that they too were going on the 
hunt—they’d changed their minds. 
“Fine!” we said. “We’ll write right down to 
Maine for another cabin.” 
“Maine!” they gasped. “Aren’t we going to the 
Adirondacks again?” 
“Oh, no,” said Bill and I. “It’s Maine and 
a buck for every man this year.” 
“Why, we don’t want to go to Maine!” 
“All right, don’t then. There’s room enough 
for you in the Adirondacks.” 
“Is Jane going to Maine?” 
“Yes, Jane is going to the hunt with her hus¬ 
band.” 
“But we want to go to the Adirondacks.” 
“Just a minute, please. Who is this great big 
we? Is it you, or is it you and Freddie?” 
“Hey!” broke in Freddie, “Just a minute, you! 
You two tramps and outcasts without any world¬ 
ly responsibilities are doing a lot of talking. 
Don’t we have anything to say about this thing?” 
We Hauled the Boat up Behind a Rock. 
