FOREST AND STREAM 
S3 
HOW OLD CAMPER FED ’EM 
RECONDITE HARMONIES OF THE VELVET 
CALIPASH AND THE VERDANT CALIPEE 
I GUESS, after all, I will have to tell 
about that meal furnished to several 
lost campers who showed up one after¬ 
noon at my headquarters in the woods, as 
detailed in Forest and Stream two years ago. 
The circumstances were that a gentle¬ 
man, his wife and younger sister, had start¬ 
ed in a canoe from their own camp in the 
morning somewhere down a big lake and 
because of their unfamiliarity with wood¬ 
craft had become lost. They were tired, 
hungry, and in need of assistance. My 
fides achates, Pete, half breed Algonquin, 
had been sent that morning to cut a trail to 
a remote lake we intended visiting later; 
the larder was low and the problem was, 
to feed those campers. 
It was so interesting that I passed it on 
to the woods tribe of Forest and Stream, 
giving an inventory of supplies on hand, 
and asking how others would have pro¬ 
ceeded under similar circumstances, and how 
they would have prepared the provender. 
The answers were a revelation, and made 
me feel proud of the people who make up 
this magazine family. They were so good 
in fact that there was nothing for me to 
add, but curious readers have been casting 
reflections ever since at Old Camper and 
expressing doubt that he had anything to 
eat, or could have cooked it if he had. 
T HAT is natural. But to get into the 
story. It would have been easy to 
have cooked a snack, but I happened 
to know the topography of that big lake, 
and I knew also that the trouble with the 
party was that they were weak in their 
orientation, as the engineers would say, 
and though they had traveled before the 
wind and by paddle m'any miles, they were 
really not far from home, and by a short 
cut portage or two and some paddling, 
could reach it quickly. 
They belonged to a railroad magnate’s 
rather sumptuous outfit, brought into the 
woods at much toil and expense, and lo¬ 
cated on an unusually good fishing lake. 
The magnate was a splendid sportsman; 
he believed in seeking the real wilderness. 
Pete had told me where the camp was lo¬ 
cated. 
So, even if 1 have to disillusionize you, 
dear reader, I did not feed those people. 
I humped my own small canoe across the 
half mile portage near the camp, came back 
and tackled the canoe of the castaways— 
the gentleman could not portage it, and 
it was a beast for weight at that—took the 
party to the first stretch of water, across 
a deep bay, over another portage of a mile, 
then down the lake quite a distance, and 
delivered them into the hands of their 
worried friends, who were about to start 
three or four guides out in search of them. 
The incident was nothing, and I blush to 
recall that I was regarded for the moment 
as a saver of life. But unlike one of Bret 
Harte’s well known characters, of whom 
it was said, “The subsequent proceedings 
interested him no more,” I fell into good 
things. 
The grateful magnate led 'me down to 
the lake front where we enjoyed a mag¬ 
nificent view of a particularly gorgeous 
Canadian sunset, the iridescence of which 
was heightened by the observation we had 
of it through an upheld glass, strengthened 
by some astronomical accelerator, icy cold, 
which the magnate kept for scientific pur¬ 
poses in a bulky thermos bottle. 
Not so many people read Genio C. Scott 
these days, but I cannot do better in this 
connection that to quote from him: “To 
those who can explain the recondite har¬ 
monies which subsist between the velvet 
calipash and the verdant calipee, nothing 
farther need be added; and for those who 
do not comprehend them, words would 
prove superfluous.” 
T HEN we went back for dinner, pre¬ 
pared by a Pullman car chef and as¬ 
sistants that formed part of the equip¬ 
ment designed for the leading of a simple 
life, imported at great trouble into the 
wilderness. 
What we had is immaterial—now. I was 
reading the other day, for the tenth time, 
Frank Forester’s descriptions of one of 
the cozy dinners which Harry Archer was 
always giving his hunter friends, and the 
similarity was striking. Like the ruralist 
returned from the city, I am strong for 
plain victuals, but “them a la’s is hell on I 
digestion.” 
At any rate I went home in the gloam¬ 
ing, and discovered Pete, returned, stand- ! 
ing on his head against a tree. Why was 
he in that attitude? To answer the ques¬ 
tion specifically, he had cooked himself a 
mess of things that disagreed with him, and 
was trying, Indian fashion, to cure a colic. 
Nothing strange about that method at 
all. The mothers of men, dating back to 
the time when Eve first turned the howling 
little Cain on his wee tummy and jiggled 
him up and down, have understood the 
trick, and doctors will explain it for you. 
Pete knew of course that I was absent. 
It did not need Indian cunning to show 
him that. We might assume that he could 
have read the sign or “spoor.” The canoe 
was gone; there was the odor of a wet 
sulphur match in the air; the tent was 
sagging. That indicated that M’sieu had 
tripped over one of his carelessly fastened 
guy ropes and had been saying things. But 
coming down to brass tacks, a note under 
the wash pan on the table told him that I 
wouldn’t be back till late. Pete had been 
captured young by the good Fathers at the 
Post, and could read, although he didn’t 
look on this as an accomplishment, but 
rather as work to be avoided. 
However, I have told what I gave those 
people for dinner. They wouldn’t have 
had it if I had not helped, so I think I may 
be included in the batting average. 
Old Camper. 
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