Be sure that your camp dietary has plenty of stewed fruits in it. That will be so much to the good in the camp health. A bottle of olive oil also will prove a great resource; in fact, a can of olive oil would be even more practical and the oil is always capital food. Although the most elaborate recipes are given for making a mayonnaise dressing it is really very simple to make, and once made can be kept on hand as “stock.” I have been making mayonnaise since I was a little girl, and, as I cook something like the proverbial darky, I do not know that I am able to give you any hard and fast directions for making the dressing. With me it is an affair of impulse; I use either the white of an egg or the whole egg, it does not make any difference—the shell you will not find palatable—beating it up thoroughly, gradually adding the oil, putting in a little lemon juice from time to time and plenty of salt. Cayenne pepper is ordinarily used in mayonnaise, but if the dressing is properly seasoned with salt and lemon it needs neither cayenne nor mustard. What it does need is thorough and long beating, a cool place, and a few minutes in which to harden after it is made.
You will learn one thing in the woods which perhaps will be a surprise. In that life it is men who are the good cooks. Indeed, it is surprising how much cleverness men show in domestic ways when they are left to their own devices and how helpless they become as soon as a woman is around. If you go astray any woodsman, any guide, almost any “sport” can help you out in the mysteries of cooking.
CHAPTER VI
THE PLACE TO CAMP
For most girls the place in which they are to camp will depend very largely on the locality in which they live. But few people want to, or feel that they can, travel long distances to secure their ideal camping ground. Yet there are some things about the place to camp which most of us can demand and get. When one has learned a little of the art of camping, it is really surprising how many good camping grounds may be found in one’s own immediate neighborhood.
The first question to be decided is the sort of expedition which we shall undertake. Are we going to rough it for a few days or a couple of weeks, taking things as they come and not expecting any of the comforts we ordinarily have? Are we going to sleep in the open, cook and eat in the open? If we are to “pack” all that we shall have along with us, is it to be a river trip or a lake trip in a canoe? Is it to be a walking expedition or with horses? The least expensive item will prove to be the one that involves taking the fewest number of guides, and which is carried out on shank’s mare. Every expedition which is continually on the move through an isolated and rough country should be equipped with one guide to each two people. If it is a stationary camp, one guide to three or four people will be the minimum. But that is the minimum. Registered guides command big pay for their work, usually about three dollars a day, and their food and lodging provided for them.
When we cannot make up for our oversight or mistakes or stupidities by trotting around the corner to procure what we have forgotten, or taking up a telephone and ordering it sent to us, or sending a message to the doctor, who must come because we have exhausted ourselves, or got indigestion from badly planned and badly cooked food, it behooves us to be careful. Only a word to the wise is necessary. To use a slang phrase which contains in a nutshell almost all that need be said on the subject: don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you are starting out on a strenuous walking expedition, be sure that all in the party are accustomed to hard walking and are properly shod and in fit condition for the work. With these requirements attended to, your duffle bags full of the right shelter and food stuff, a capable man or capable men in charge of the expedition, there is nothing in the world which could be better for a group of healthy girls than a walking tour. I have walked scores of miles with my own little pack on my back and been all the better for the hard work and the hard living. More of us need hard living as a corrective for our over-civilized lives than we need luxuries. If it is a canoe trip, it is well for several members of the party to know how to paddle and even to pole up over the “rips” of quickwater. Thank fortune that the girl of to-day has sloughed off some of the inane traits supposed to be excusably feminine, such, for example, as screaming when frightened. The modern girl doesn’t need to be told that screaming and jumping when she goes down her first quickwater in a canoe are distinctly out of order. I remember one experience in quickwater when I was not sure but that I should have to jump literally for my life. In some way the Indian with whom I was had got his setting pole caught in the rocks, and we were swung around sidewise over a four-foot drop of raging water. If the pole loosened before we could get the nose of the canoe pointed down stream, the end was inevitable. No one could have lived in those raging waters. The canoe would have been rolled over and we pounded to pieces or crushed upon the rocks. We clawed the racing water madly with the paddles, which seemed, for all the good they could do, more like toothpicks than paddles. But slowly, inch by inch, straining every muscle, we managed to work around. Needless to say, we escaped unharmed, except for a wetting. In this case as always, a miss is as good as a mile—a little “miss” which was most cordially received by me. The Indian said nothing, but I noticed that there was some expression in his face while this adventure was going on, and that is saying a good deal for an Indian.
After some of the questions connected with the kind of expedition are thought out, it is just as well to consider the place in which one wishes to camp, for that will determine much else. All things being equal, it is well to get a sharp contrast in locality, because that means the maximum of change and tonic. In my experience there are only two kinds of camping grounds to be avoided—no, I will say three. First, there is swampy, malarial land, infested by mosquitoes and other unpleasant creatures. Second, there is ground on which no water can be found. Camp life without access to water is an impossible proposition. And thirdly—a possibility fortunately which does not occur in many localities—ground that is infested by venomous snakes is unsafe. Even in so beautiful and fertile a region as the Connecticut Valley, where I live when not at my camp in the Moosehead region, and where I frequently go camping, the question of snakes has to be taken into consideration. I have encountered both the rattlesnake and the copperhead, two of the most deadly reptiles known, in the Connecticut Valley.