Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1911. 
VOL. LXXVII.—No. 22. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
MAKING CAMP. 
From a photograph by Rutherford Rage. 
Two Ways 
One Way. 
HE moment their canoe came into sight they 
proclaimed themselves “tourists,” as we 
called such persons in the woods. It was 
a low river model, although they were in a re¬ 
gion of big lakes. They sat on gunwale high 
seats. Their paddiing was slow in recovery, not 
always in unison, and the stern paddler fre¬ 
quently missed a stroke when he swung the canoe 
back into the line which his own inattention 
had permitted it to leave. 
I had just lighted my pipe after lunch on the 
lower side of the upper Loon River portage. 
Having spent a hard forenoon in the brush a 
mile down river, I was in no hurry to go on, so 
I settled back against a boulder to watch them 
make the portage. As my camp-fire had been 
doused, there was no smoke, and they did not 
see me until fifty feet away. Then they stopped 
paddling and stared. They would have called 
it “gawking” had I looked at them the same way 
in a city. 
“This a portage?” asked the shorter one in 
the bow, although the impassable falls and the 
well beaten trail leading into the brush lay di¬ 
rectly before him. I nodded. 
“Long one?” 
“Just a little more than a lift over,” I told 
him. 
Leisurely the taller one began to paddle, while 
his companion continued to stare at me, evidently 
trying to determine what I was doing there with 
nothing but a single pack sack. I had carried 
my canoe across while the tea was boiling. The 
stern paddler continued to paddle, and the other 
to stare, until they struck a submerged but plain¬ 
ly visible boulder. Each accused the other of 
carelessness. With some difficulty they pushed 
By ROBERT E. PINKERTON 
off, and then, after striking the same rock again 
near the middle of the canoe, they landed, run¬ 
ning the bow straight up on the rocky shore. 
Laying his paddle across the gunwales, the taker 
tourist filled and lighted his pipe. The other 
searched in the loose duffle behind him until he 
found his. Then he stepped out, turned and 
pulled the canoe up on the rocks as far as he 
could, leaving it suspended between the water 
at the stern and a boulder at the bow. 
The other walked the length of the boat, al¬ 
most upsetting it as his foot caught in the tent 
loosely thrown over a thwart. As he passed 
the middle the bottom gave beneath his weight. 
The canoe tipped as he got out and showed most 
of a scarred bottom. It had been a good craft, 
but the strain of many similar landings and in¬ 
expert work in shallows and rapids had played 
havoc with the frame and bottom. Lrom the 
gouges in paint and canvas I surmised that they 
had come down the rapid-filled Vermillion from 
Tower and were bound for Ely. 
Leaving their canoe hanging by both ends 
with the weight of their duffle in the unsup¬ 
ported middle, like a patient horse compelled 
by a careless driver to hold a heavy load on a 
steep grade, they sat down near me and entered 
into conversation. It was easy to see, through 
a ten days’ growth of scraggly beard, that they 
were about twenty-five years old. Their faces 
and hands were freshly sunburned and their 
noses peeling. One wore a pair of golf knickers 
with knee length stockings and a pair of factory- 
made moccasins. The other wore long khaki 
trousers and tennis shoes over light cotton socks. 
Both wore khaki shirts of a distinctly sporting 
pattern. Neither wore a hat. 
Lrom their conversation I learned of the hard¬ 
ships of the Vermiilion River portages, the 
ferocity of mosquitoes and of the heavy wind 
they bucked on Little Vermillion Lake; where 
they lived, what they did, that this was their 
third canoe trip, the others having been on the 
Mississippi River and the St. Croix River from 
The Dalles down, and that both were accus¬ 
tomed to roughing it and liked it very much. 
They told me how easy it was to find their way 
by the map, so I kept silent about the myriad 
islands of Lac La Croix and the bewildering 
arms and points of Crooked Lake. 
Their pipes emptied, they returned to the 
canoe. One on either side, they hauled it higher 
over the rocks and clear of the water, leaving 
the center resting on the sharp top of a boulder 
and giving beneath the weight. Then they began 
unloading. There was a tent, a canvas affair 
and evidently large. It certainly was heavy and 
bulky. Then came a wooden box a foot deep, 
two feet long and eighteen inches wide. Two 
small iron handles decorated the ends. The 
noise when one dropped his end announced a 
box of grub and dishes. Following it were two 
long, narrow duffle bags made of water-proofed 
material. There was one pack sack, evidently 
filled with blankets. A protruding corner of one 
showed it to be of the light, half cotton bed 
variety. Scattered loosely the length of the 
canoe were two coats from discarded business 
suits, sweaters, a pair of high, laced hunting 
boots with moccasin feet, a package of tobacco, 
a map soiled and torn, two heavy enameled ket¬ 
tles and a heavy handled frying-pan which had 
lost some of their blackness on the duffle, two 
hand axes of the pocket variety, an iron frame 
with laced top to set over a fire and hold kett’es, 
a wicker basket which still is a mystery to me, 
