An Adirondack Camp 
flapjacks filled with huckleberries, and bread 
toasted on long sticks make up the bill of fare. 
The appetites of the occasion are a shame 
and a scandal. 1 he return home by moon¬ 
light is a fitting close to a day thus passed in 
the open air, and the parti-colored lights of 
the camp are only less welcome than the com¬ 
fortable beds in tent or cabin. Sometimes the 
women of the camp share the hunt with the 
men. The sunset shot is a favorite one. The 
light canoe is sent in absolute silence up or down 
one of the wild little streams. As it glides 
into a reach of clear still green water, the 
unsuspicious muskrat swims across the stream 
with his mouth tightly shut upon a mass of 
rubbish designed to make cosy his amphibious 
winter home, the wild duck rises suddenly 
ahead on whistling wings to speed up stream, 
and the blue heron floats in majestic silence 
on shell-like wings against the roseate sky. 
Absolute silence is the law of the sunset 
hunter, and the second occupant of the canoe 
is hardly conscious that the dim-seen object 
ahead is really a deer, before the rifle cracks 
and the game is brought down. The lady 
must not be too dainty to seat herself, if need 
be, upon the journey home on the hairy and 
bleeding side of the victim. 
One fault all who have stayed the season 
through at this camp have to find with 
1 reasure Island, and that is its tantalizing 
habit of arraying itself in its most entrancing 
guise on the night when the company breaks 
camp for the year. Time and again, the 
departing campers have stood on the farther 
shore just after sunset, with the carriage 
for the station waiting close at hand, to turn 
and take a last look at the beloved spot. 
1 here it lies, lone and lovely, clothed in the 
final splendors of the vanishing day, the rosy 
lake dimpling all about it, and mayhap the 
smoke of the wasted hearth-fire faintly stain¬ 
ing the evening sky above the trees. To 
those who love the free life of the wilder¬ 
ness it seems nothing less than a crime 
against one’s better self to exchange that 
abode of enchanted innocence for the sordid 
town. 
ON THE WHARF 
292 
