Camp Comfort 
Its Game and its Ways—Part I. 
By H. H. BRIMLEY 
“ILL that train never come in?” I was 
wW in a fever of excitement lest some¬ 
thing or somebody should turn up at 
the last moment to make the trip impossible. 
But once fairly aboard with camera, rifle and 
suit case, and check for steamer trunk that held 
my heavier impedimenta, the train started for 
the east—and I breathed freely once more. 
The wording of the last letter received had 
been: ‘‘Come down on the night train the eve¬ 
ning before. We are going down to camp in the 
motor and will have a hot supper ready for you. 
We want you in time for a big hunt in the morn¬ 
ing. Plenty of deer, and some fresh bear sign.” 
That was enough. 
At 7 130 I left the train at the little way station 
nearest to camp and soon heard my name called. 
‘'Hello, George,” I replied, ‘‘are the others at 
camp?” ‘‘All there, Mr. B., and they killed the 
biggest buck ever the other day.” So we got 
the trunk, stowed my belongings aboard the 
transfer wagon, and were off. It was a little 
after the full moon and the drive of a half dozen 
miles through the fresh October air was delight¬ 
ful. A fog hung low over the open pocosins and 
broomstraw fields and all seemed weird, woodsy 
and altogether inviting. 
A royal greeting awaited me in camp from 
my old and tried friends. N., that prince of 
sportsmen, was there; Mr. D., one of nature’s 
very finest, gave me the gladdest of glad hands; 
the Judge, Ed., Johnny and a couple more made 
up the party. But we did not have much time 
for talk that night. The weather had been very 
dry for several weeks and the dogs trailed much 
better and worked more satisfactorily all around 
while the dew was still on the grass and bushes. 
So, with early to bed for the motto, soon no 
sound was heard, save the snoring of a few. of 
the occupants of the bunks, and once in a while 
the rattle of a dog chain outside. 
Long before dawn the alarm clock rang its un¬ 
welcome chimes, and D., our young and energetic 
cook arrd driver, was soon hard at work. One 
by one the others dropped from their bunks and 
donned their old woods togs after a dip in the 
creek in front of the camp. This is Camp Com¬ 
fort in its nature, and should be so named. It 
contains two bunk rooms, with six full double- 
bed-size bunks. It also has a cook-and-dining- 
room, with plenty of lockers and pantry space, 
and in the bunk rooms are gun racks of deer 
feet and all sorts of odd corners for the storage 
of ducks and goose decoys and general camp 
plunder. In making these deer-foot gun-racks 
the feet are tied up bent while green, and when 
dry will hold any weight that can be put on 
them. They are then nailed to the walls in 
pairs and make the best kind of racks for camp 
use. 
This being the first day in camp there was 
A LADDER STAND IN THE POCOSIN. 
nothing but store grub on the table at breakfast, 
but later—oh, my! It was decided to make the 
south drive that morning, and we all started 
with anticipations of a great day. The dogs 
were in first class shape—six of them—and the 
nearest stand was not more than three-quarters 
of a mile from camp. Here we dropped Mr. D. 
The Judge stopped at the next, while D. took 
two dogs off to our left to turn loose on the 
edge of the open pocosin. These first two stands 
were in the open on the firm and dry marshy 
borders of a shallow lake two miles in diameter 
-— a fine chance for good rifle shooting should 
the deer determine to head that way. U. we 
dropped in the woods in a good open place be¬ 
tween the lake and the pocosin, and opposite 
him two more dogs were turned loose. 
Still forward was the word, until two and a 
half miles from camp, when N. and I headed for 
the open pocosin, while J. went on a few hun¬ 
dred yards further up the woods. We turned 
one dog loose near our stands and J. turned the 
other loose near his. I was carrying a short, 
light ladder to use against one of the scattering 
pines in the open grounds, so as to give me a 
better view over the sea of gallberry bushes and 
stunted bays that form the pocosin’s chief 
growth. I fixed my ladder ’300 yards beyond the 
woods, while N. went on a like distance beyond 
me. 
Long ere this several of the dogs were hot on 
the scent of deer, and their vigorous baying told 
that they had jumped the quarry they had been 
trailing. In this particular section, where there 
is a great deal of quite open Country, the run¬ 
ning of deer by dogs is the most sportsmanlike 
method of hunting them. All the chances are 
with the deer. They are never shot in the water, 
and having no regular runways it is uncertain 
to the last moment whether or not anyone will 
get a shot. The average distance at which they 
are killed is probably between fifty and one 
hundred yards, and some have been laid out as 
far away as 300 yards. Most of those that I 
have killed around here have been at eighty or 
ninety yards, with nothing over a hundred, 
though I once shot four times at one that I esti¬ 
mated to be 600 yards away. My fourth bullet 
had the effect of turning him back — which was 
my object — though nobody got him that day. 
The pocosins spoken of above are large 
stretches of low, open country, more or less 
swampy, with a thick growth of low gallberry 
bushes well and strongly laced together with 
bamboo brier (greenbrier or smilax). Among 
the gallberry grow scattering bays and more 
scattering small pines. These are the light or 
low pocosins, but others show a much higher 
growth, often over a man’s head, and they are 
then practically impenetrable to anything but 
game or dogs. There is a saying there that a 
deer leaps over the obstructions in a pocosin, a 
bear plows through them, but it is hell on dogs 
and men — and the saying falls rather short of 
the real truth. .But a path had been bushed out 
through the high pocosin next to the woods, and 
one could, with care and time, make his way 
slowly through the low growth beyond. 
From my little ladder standing some five feet 
above the ground I could see for a mile or more 
in one direction, and half a mile in two others, 
the woods and high pocosin cutting off my view 
to the east down to two or three hundred yards. 
