Jan. 5, 1907-J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
9 
f 
Camp Don’t Hurry. 
IV.—The Old Bear Hunter's Home. 
Saturday morning Robert took the train to 
he first station up the creek, and fished back 
o camp, while we set about reorganizing our 
■ooking apparatus. So far we had used the 
ire between two logs, and while it cooked the 
ood, it often overdid it, as well as broiling us 
;onsiderably. Whenever we spoke of making 
.ny different plans, Robert would announce that 
ve could use what we liked, but for him, the 
)pen fire was the only proper thing. Henry 
md I admitted the romance of it, but deplored 
he inconvenience. 
It looks beautiful, in a picture, to see a man 
lown on one knee, with the other sticking out 
n front of him, like a half open jack-knife, and 
tracefully holding a frying-pan over a fire. If 
hat same man will stay there long enough to 
ry a mess of trout, it will take a crow-bar to 
>ry him up, and you cannot rub the kinks out 
)f his back and legs by bed-time. Then if 
le happens to want to make coffee and pan¬ 
cakes at the same time, he will wish he had 
lands sticking out all over his body. That is 
lot all the trouble either, for he needs a sort 
if merry-go-round contrivance to keep him in 
iroper relation to the wind and fire, in order 
o avoid burning his whiskers and converting 
lie pancakes into charcoal tablets. 
Robert liked this sort of thing, or pretended 
re did, which amounts to about the same in 
his world, but Henry and I could not get ac¬ 
customed to starting in on one side of a griddle- 
•ake, where it was burned to a crisp, and wind- 
ng up at the other edge, with our teeth full 
if batter. 
Lying in the bottom of the trunk was a 
liece of sheet iron about two feet wide and 
hree feet long, with a couple of griddle holes 
■:ut in it, and round pieces to form the griddles; 
j dso three or four bars of light wagon tire, 
! ibout thirty inches in length, which we had 
irovided with the intention of building a cook- 
ng arch. Robert knew nothing of these bits 
if “foolishness,” and while Henry went to the 
i illage and bought a couple of lengths of stove¬ 
pipe, Uncle Nick and I gathered stones and 
t aid two parallel walls, about a foot apart, and 
ifteen inches high, which were joined together 
,it one end by a similar wall. We made a 
ort of mortar out of loam, and imbedded the 
tones tightly in it, so that when the sheet- 
ron was put on, and the stove-pipe built into 
he closed end, it made a very fair arch. The 
| fits of wagon-tire laid across under the coVer, 
I :ept jt from sagging with the weight of pots 
md kettles. 
As soon as the thing was filled with dry pine 
I wigs and lighted, we stood back a respectful 
ij listance, for those sand stones were likely to 
j lo some snapping before they became fire sea- 
i 1 .oned. After a puff or two of smoke, the draft 
ound its way up the pipe, and how it did 
•oar. When the stones began to warm, it 
ounded like a giant corn-popper, and to stand 
, n front of the open end was abopt like fool- 
'ng around the muzzle of a Gatling gun. That 
nerformanc'e lasted for an hour or more, and 
hen the arch sobered down to be a good 
lonest cook-stove. We prepared dinner on it, 
md were satisfied that a big improvement in 
. )ur domestic affairs had been made. 
“Well, now!” said Robert as he tramped into 
camp, and sliding his thumb under the basket- 
strap, lifted it over his head, and dropped 
the well filled basket in front of the tents, 
“The boys have been having a nice play-spell.” 
Then walking around our “new contrivance/’ 
and examining it skeptically, he remarked, “It’s 
too late in the season to use it to boil sap on, 
but I guess it will do to dry out some half- 
baked things there are around camp.” 
“It might come in handy to dry out any 
clumsy fellow who happened to fall into the 
creek,” Henry replied. 
After the remarks had died down, I took a 
trip with Terry across the flat, and up the side 
of a mountain, to perfect his training in “Toho,” 
and also to give myself a view of the valley 
from another direction. The pup had already 
learned to stop short at any pace when I gave 
the command, and would stand still until I 
came up to him, but now I wanted him to learn 
to remain standing, if I passed him. That was 
a great tax, but he learned it quickly, although 
the first few times that I walked by him he felt 
certain he was going to be left behind, and 
would almost wiggle out of his tracks. Often 
he crept up a little when my back was turned, 
but if I faced about he was standing stock still 
again. When I gave him the word to come on, 
there was no hesitation, and an arrow would 
have been kept busy following him. 
A smart puppy is certainly fine company, and 
we both enjoyed the afternoon, for when the 
training was over I let him roam at will, and 
many a chipmunk and woodchuck had to hunt 
their holes in haste. 
From a cliff half way up the mountain, I 
could see the Esopus go wiggling away among 
the foot-hills; and the railroad cross and re¬ 
cross it. The trains would crawl from rocky 
cuts, and then go out of sight into the next- 
opening. The sky was full of broken fleeces, 
and their shadows raced across the valley, while 
the houses of the village were one minute a 
dull lead color and the next a glistening white. 
On the narrow flats bug-lilu men and horses 
crept over the light brown fields, plowing and 
harrowing. 
We staid until a longer and permanent shadow 
came. It was High Point shutting off the de¬ 
clining sun. and we tramped down through the 
rustling laurel bushes on to the soft green 
nreadow, where birds were constantly flying , 
up and settling down. 
Sunday morning we had breakfast prepared 
by two different methods. Henry cooked the 
bacon and pancakes on the arch, but Robert 
insisted upon frying the trout over the open 
fire. The arguments for and against the rival 
culinary systems lasted until Uncle Nick had 
the dishes washed, and then Robert started 
out to give 11s a practical demonstration of the 
open fire’s superiority. 
He had told us what fine pot-pie he could 
make with venison, but he said it would work 
as well with veal, and he was going to give 
us a treat. The night before he had gotten 
the meat, with the other necessary ingredients, 
at the village, also a twelve quart tin pail to 
do the cooking in. He fixed a fire to suit 
him, and hung the pail over it, with the veal, 
water, and such other things as his recipe 
called for in it. Then with a deal of care and 
precision he mixed certain quantities of flour, 
lard, baking-powder. &c., until by the time the 
meat had cooked long enough for their re¬ 
ception, he had turned out about a dozen quite 
natural looking embryo dumplings. We watched 
the process and encouraged him by kindly sug¬ 
gesting different things, which we believed 
would add to the quality of the product, but 
he stubbornly refused to accept our amendments, 
although some of them were aTticles of recog¬ 
nized merit, like Limburger cheese and sour- 
krout. Henry said, “Those dumplings are go¬ 
ing to be pretty large caliber for any gun we 
have, but perhaps we can melt them up, and 
cast them over smaller.” Uncle Nick remarked, 
“The pail looks strong, so there ain’t much 
chance of their failin’ through the bottom.” 
I urged trying strings on to them so that if 
we happpened to want to eat one, we could 
pull it up. “You better do that to the next 
big trout you hook, then mebbe you can land 
him,” Robert retorted. 
When the cover was removed from the pail, 
a tempting odor came out, and we began to 
have hopes that Robert had not overdrawn the 
picture of his ability. He laid the dumplings 
carefully all over the top of the meat, so that 
they looked like a nest full of eggs ; and then 
put the cover back on, while w r e waited to see 
if he could really hatch out a pot-pie. 
The wind was shifty, so that the fire would 
not stay where it belonged, and Robert had to 
work lively to keep it evenly distributed. Some¬ 
times it would blaze up on one side of the 
pail clear to the top, while the other side would 
be out of the heat, and getting cooled off. Rob¬ 
ert twisted and turned it, and slid it back and 
forth on the pole, but do his best he could 
not get the flames in the right place more 
than a minute at a time. The busier he got, 
the redder his face grew, and strong words be¬ 
gan to leak out. 
All at once he snatched the pail clear away 
from the fire, and pulling the cover off, got a 
cloud of hot steam on his hands and in his 
face. We asked what was the matter, and he 
said “Oh! like a fool, I didn’t put water enough 
in, and now it’s boiled dry and burning. If 
I give it more water the dumplings will fall, 
and if I don’t they’ll be scorched.” 
A council was held, and the difficulty solved 
by his poking a hole between the dumplings 
with a stick, while Henry and I poured in 
water through a paper funnel. When the lid 
was replaced, he returned the pail to the fire, 
resuming the whirling and dancing program, 
until he said, “Well, I guess the things are 
done.” 
Uncle Nick had set the table, while Henry 
and I cooked the balance of the meal on the 
arch, so that everything was in readiness for 
the grand feast. Each one took a plate, and 
with a fork and big spoon dug out as much 
from the pail as he dared undertake. Uncle 
Nick took the first taste, and a look of dis¬ 
appointment went over his face, while his next 
mouthful was something else beside pot-pie. 
Henry was second to try, and I caught him 
smothering a groan. I clung close to potatoes, 
and waited for Robert, who was last to sit 
down. He had not noticed the effect upon the 
others, and being hungry from his exercise, 
took a liberal sample. A sort of shock seemed 
to strike him, and then bracing up under it 
he said, “There, I told you. you couldn’t cook 
anything decent within a hundred feet of an 
arch.” 
Well, it did not matter much, for baked po¬ 
tatoes and dried beef make a pretty fair Sun¬ 
day dinner any way. 
When it was time to feed the dogs, Henry 
gave a plateful of the pot-pie to Lassie, but 
