Out With the Boys. 
Were you ever out with the “boys”? I do 
not mean those boys by courtesy and custom 
who make up the great army of woodsers and 
who may just as likely as not have the gray 
beards and short breath that foretell the com¬ 
ing evening of life. These are truly “boys” in 
spirit, and we are all glad to count ourselves 
of their number as long as we can wield a 
paddle or carry a pack. In truth the term 
“boys” is an elastic one—like that of Colonel 
in Kentucky. But at present I am using the 
term with more of its original sense as apply¬ 
ing to those budding youths of eighteen or 
twenty who have the frame, if not the sinews, 
of a man, but the mind and irresponsibility of 
a child. If you have not taken a trip into the 
woods with a pair of that sort, perhaps I may 
say something new to you; if you have, I may 
awaken sympathetic memories. 
It was about the middle of August when I 
learned that not one of all my old camping 
partners could get away for even a few days 
in the woods with me. The season was well 
advanced, my family would not hear of a soli¬ 
tary pilgrimage on my part—for they cannot 
understand, poor things, that for an experienced 
camper the woods are much safer than Broad- 
way—and I was getting desperate. What is a 
summer without at least a few days spent under 
canvas in the woods or along shore? Fortu¬ 
nately, as it then seemed to me, there were in 
my neighborhood several young fellows of the 
irresponsible variety to which I have alluded, 
two of whom jumped with the enthusiasm of 
youth at my suggestion that we three make an 
expedition into the mountains after trout. I 
knew they were careless, and so I took good 
care to collect in person what we needed in the 
way of supplies and equipment. I also gave 
each boy a list of things that he would need 
personally. We planned to stay a week, and 
I laid in provisions accordingly. 
The first shock came on the morning of our 
departure. The pair turned up at my house, 
from which the start was to be made, with the 
information that Bob could stay only three 
days! Of course, Fred wanted to come back 
with him, and equally, of course, I did not 
wish to stay out alone. Therefore I made a 
hurried effort to reduce the food supply to a 
four-day basis, for I am averse to carrying 
around a week’s supply of food, knowing that I 
cannot possibly consume it. Such a useless load 
impairs the beauty of the scenery. But every¬ 
thing was carefully packed—I had seen to that 
and the reduction could by no means be ac¬ 
curately accomplished in the scant time at our 
disposal. We started, therefore, with four 
days’ supply of some articles and a full week s 
of some others. Despite my disgust, this was 
just as well, as the sequel will prove. 
As usual when I take my annual camping 
trip, it was raining on the morning of our de¬ 
parture, and during the long ride up the river 
in a launch it not only rained, but it poured. 
Our ponchos were in use from the first moment. 
I soon learned that my young friends were 
armed to the teeth, for each produced a fine .45 
caliber revolver and blazed away at rocks and 
stumps as the launch chugged along through 
the rain. This amused them and no harm was 
done, except perhaps to the guns. 
On the way up the river we had to pass a 
lock where Fred, laboring in excess of zeal 
to swing the gates, missed his footing on rain- 
drenched concrete and fell eight or ten feet into 
a pool beside the lock, narrowly missing some 
ugly rocks as he came down. He was out 
again in a flash, apparently unhurt, but the in¬ 
cident was a forecast of what was to come, and 
I began to think that if I sucteeded in getting 
that pair home with unbroken bones, I should 
breathe a sigh of relief. 
At eleven o’clock we left the launch, shoul¬ 
dered our packs and struck into the woods. 
The rain had ceased temporarily, and for some 
miles the trail led through large timber free 
from underbrush. Things began to look better 
and we made good time. We had to climb over 
the shoulder of a mountain, on the other side 
of which there was a good tote road for eight 
or ten miles to our proposed camping place. 
The trail remained good to the summit of the 
ridge, but it was a chore getting up with those 
packs. Beyond the ridge, however, we soon 
found ourselves at fault. The trail degenerated 
into a line of faint blazes and finally, when we 
were pretty well down the mountain, even these 
failed us. There was nothing to do but steer 
by map and compass. Presently we found our¬ 
selves at the base of the ridge in an old lumber 
slashing overgrown with raspberry vines, on 
the oozy margin of a small pond. We had no 
difficulty in locating the pond on the map and 
found that we were only about three-quarters 
of a mile from our objective, the tote road. 
But we had wasted a good deal of time flounder¬ 
ing about in the slashing, the boys picking 
raspberries the while, and it was long past lunch 
time. So, as we had our hotel with us, and, 
save for the loss of a little time, it did not 
matter where we camped, I called a halt for 
lunch. It is a sensation worth while—this 
knowledge that you have right with you all 
the essentials for a comfortable meal and a 
comfortable night. What mattered it that we 
had strayed a bit? We knew that we were still 
somewhere on the map, and meanwhile we 
could camp here, if need be, and enjoy our¬ 
selves. 
Bob. who had served an apprenticeship in the 
Canadian woods as a fire ranger, seized the ax 
and showed the worth of his training by the 
speed with which he split out some dry wood 
for our fire. We were soon enjoying a hearty 
lunch, washed down with some screeching hot 
tea. Meanwhile we debated our position, and 
knowing that we could hardly do the remaining 
nine or ten miles before dark, we decided to 
push on as far as convenient and camp where- 
ever night should overtake us. 
After lunch the going was pretty bad and the 
boys’ guns began to tell on their nether gai - 
ments. Having no separate revolver belts, they 
made shift to stow the weapons, holsters and 
all, in their pistol pockets; but the ordinary 
pistol pocket is not intended for a two-pound 
gun, and when a man is carrying a thirty-pound 
pack with which he has to crawl under wind¬ 
falls, balance along logs, and stumble through 
a tangle of berry vines, the constant downward 
strain of a heavy revolver on the belt is such 
that one’s trousers begin to sag to a point 
which is dangerous when a more than usually 
wide stride has to be taken. Hence sundry in¬ 
cipient rips began to appear, but as yet the 
trousers held out manfully, and as we were soon 
in the tote road, where we could assume a 
steady, swinging pace, the danger passed, for 
the time being. 
The road followed the course of a beautiful 
stream up a valley, on either side of which tow¬ 
ered high mountains—at least we knew that they 
“towered” there, although we could not see 
them on account of the low-hanging rain clouds. 
We could see the stream, however, at frequent 
intervals, and it was so enticing that we were 
sorely tempted to halt and unhmber the rods. 
But we wished to make four or five miles first, 
so that we could camp within easy reach of the 
stream in the next valley on which we had 
planned to spend most of our time. And so we 
pushed on until the gloom of the settling clouds 
warned us that we must camp soon, if we would 
have the tent up before night and rain were 
upon us. The wind was rising, too, ahd every¬ 
thing indicated a nasty night. Plunging down 
from the road to the bank of the stream, we 
soon found a pocket just large enough to ac¬ 
commodate our little tent and. a big file. It 
was nicely sheltered from the wind by steep 
banks and large timber, and we proceeded to 
make all snug for the night. By this time the 
threatened rain was beginning to come, adding 
—if anything could be added—to the wetness of 
fern and moss already soaked to the point of 
saturation by the morning’s downpour. The 
outlook was not promising, but it is wonderful 
what a transformation may be effected by a 
half-hour’s good work with ax and sheath knife. 
At the end of that time we had the tent up, back 
to the wind, and the rubber blankets spread on 
the wet ground within. Soon after we had a 
bright fire roaring across the whole front of the 
tent almost under the edge of the dripping roof 
and a good hot meal in preparation. And so in 
a gale that roared through the tree tops, sway¬ 
ing the huge trunks with many a creak and 
groan, we passed a night of entire comfort. 
Subsequently we learned that in the open coun¬ 
try this same gale had caused havoc, blowing 
down trees and unroofing houses. But in our 
snug ravine we felt only an occasional eddy 
from the main current. 
We were up with the dawn. The force of the 
gale was spent, and only the high-scudding 
clouds, revealing now and again the blue be¬ 
tween their ragged edges, showed that there 
was still wind in the upper air. After a hot 
