THE CALL TO CAMP 
W E are here! 
It is dusk. The sunset is red and 
silent beyond the hills, and velvet 
shadows are drifting out of the woods 
down to the sandy shore of the lake. 
There is a deep peace in the leaves of the 
trees about/us. 
We have come. We have gathered! 
And now glows before us our first camp¬ 
fire of the season. The city is forgotten. 
Its streets are strange—therefore do not 
mention them in our presence. Business 
may beckon unnoticed, civilization may 
stand unheralded; our whole and sole ob¬ 
ject now is to watch the trout and the 
bacon broil. 
Yes, we have a peculiar fetich—this our 
camp-fire. The Red Gods have called! 
This call—this subtle, penetrating call— 
came to us the other day. We heard in 
strange lands, and answered. We scaled 
obstructing walls, and ran away from 
desk and pen and the trimmed hedges of 
lawns, and came. We knew the call was 
insistent—felt it to be so—therefore we 
dropped the reins of the world and came. 
The woods belong to us; our blood and 
our hearts belong to the woods. 
We are here. The trees and we are 
one. 
(Turn that trout, Jim, my chum; it is 
smoking! The grease in the pan is blue 
with heat.) 
The fragrance of balsam and pine floats 
above us. The brook gurgles among the 
stones over yonder. The pines are dark 
green, and their needles are whispering 
dreamily. There are healthful couches in 
the shade of the trees waiting for us, and 
there are paths wandering among the hills 
and leading out along the banks of mean¬ 
dering streams that we may explore to¬ 
morrow. 
Why did we linger in the cities as long 
as we did? The question being unanswer¬ 
able, we shall not attempt to answer. Hun¬ 
grily we now drink into our lungs the 
tonic of the woods—real air with a vital 
tang to it. We are thankful that we are 
here. 
What matters what we were yesterday 
—merchants or capitalists or office clerks 
or college men? Our 
former callings affect 
nothing that belongs to 
us today; we are now 
woodsmen. The voca¬ 
tions we professed to 
follow last week so zeal¬ 
ously, so diligently and 
enthusiastically, are for¬ 
gotten. We are many 
men from many walks 
and many stations, gath¬ 
ered to a single call. 
We listened for the 
benediction of the sea¬ 
sons when we started 
out. It came. “May the 
way be clear before you 
when the old Spring-fret 
comes o’er you, and the 
Red Gods call for you!’’ 
We picked up the pad¬ 
dles, pushed the canoe 
into the water with all 
paraphernalia on board, 
and paddled upstream. 
This afternoon we came 
to the headwaters of our 
creek. The Great Divide 
lay before us, and the sun was low 
in the west. Beyond the ridge lay 
the calling, luring, subtle-voiced wilder¬ 
ness; back of us lay the cities. With¬ 
out a backward glance or a pause we 
hauled across the portage. A network of 
unmapped streams welcomed us. Beyond 
lay a hundred mirroring lakes in the hol¬ 
lows of the land, and trout and ducks and 
wild rice flats and singing sunsets became 
suddenly and strangely intermeshed with 
our thoughts. 
With one consent we decided to camp 
for the night. We gathered dry brush¬ 
wood and the rough, shaggy boughs of 
cedar in the glow of the sunset. That 
was a short half-hour ago. Now our 
camp-fire is builded. The bacon is sizz¬ 
ling noisily and the coffee is at hand. 
We will worship at the ancient pagan 
altars and cater to our hungers in the 
fashion of virile young men. 
We are here! Ye gods, but we are 
thankful! 
“SHOOT 1 N’ ‘EM SETTIN*. *’ 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have just finished reading your edi¬ 
torial “Ef you shoot ’em settin’ ” and am 
willing to go on the stand. 
The truly ethical sportsman, to my mind, 
is the one who takes into consideration the 
quantity of game in the locality hunted 
and so governs his acts. A good wing 
shot with a good dog might be a poorer 
sportsman than the man who alone hunted 
out partridge and “shot ’em settin’,” but 
who was satisfied with a fewer number. 
The man who does not own a dog and 
cannot shoot birds on the wing should not 
partridge "settin’." J. G. Fulton. 
