The Boy Scouts of Woodcraft Camp

by Thornton W. Burgess

But the moment the boy moved she whirled for the shore, sending the water flying in a shower of silver. As the boy, in open-mouthed astonishment, watched her she lightly leaped a fallen log, and with a parting flirt of her white flag disappeared in the undergrowth.

Walter’s chagrin was too deep for words. Indeed, he was very near to tears as he realized what a rare opportunity he had missed, and how wholly his own fault it was. He did not dare look at Big Jim, and there was no comfort in the guide’s slow, sarcastic drawl:

“A clean miss, pard. Did them books teach yer thet lightnin’ whirl? ’Pears t’ me thet you an’ puss back thar, keepin’ company with ole Fly-by-night, belong in th’ same class. Now if yer mem’ry had been as good as yer fergittery we’d most likely hev drifted right up t’ thet thar deer. No use wastin’ more time in here. Some day when yer hev larned a leetle more woodcraft mebbe we’ll run down an’ try it agen.”

This surely was rubbing it in, and Big Jim meant it to be so. Right down in his big heart he was almost as disappointed for the boy as was the boy himself, but he felt that this was the time to drive the lesson home. Every word stung the chagrined young photographer like a whip-lash, and he could not trust himself to make reply. He was mortified beyond expression, for he had prided himself that he knew the value of noiselessness and motionlessness, and that when the test should come he would win golden opinions from the guide for his display of woodcraft. Now, at the very first opportunity, he had failed miserably, acting like the veriest tyro, and he felt himself humbled to the last degree.

Had he turned he might have caught a kindly twinkle in the blue eyes watching the dejected droop of his figure, but he kept his face steadily to the front, gazing fixedly ahead, yet seeing nothing, while automatically he swung his paddle and gloomily lived over the bitterness of his mistake.

They were now once more in the current, and in a matter-of-fact way the guide suggested that Walter put his paddle up and be ready for whatever else might offer. As he adjusted the camera the boy resolved that this time, come what might, he would show Big Jim that he had learned his lesson.

The opportunity came sooner than he had dared hope it would. The canoe swerved sharply toward the east bank, and presently Walter made out a little brown bunch on the end of a log. With a nod of the head he signaled the guide that he saw, and then attended strictly to his end of the matter in hand. By this time the canoe was close in to the bank, so deftly handled that it would approach within twenty feet of the log before emerging from the screen of a fallen tree which the guide had instantly noted and taken advantage of.

Jim was paddling only enough for steerage way, allowing the current to drift them down. They were now close to the fallen tree, and the guide began to silently work the little craft around the outer end. Walter had reduced the focus to twenty-five feet. As they drifted nearer and nearer to the subject he began to shake with nervous excitement, so that it was only by the exercise of all his will power that he could hold the camera steady. Inch by inch they crept past the tree and Walter strained his eyes for a glimpse of the old log with its little bunch of fur. He was holding his breath from sheer excitement. Ha! There was the outer end of the log, and there, a foot or so back, sat a muskrat, wholly oblivious to their presence.

Slowly, with the utmost caution, Walter turned in his seat, so slowly that it seemed ages to him. The guide had checked the canoe within less than twenty feet of the log and Walter altered his focus accordingly. Now in his reflecting finder he clearly saw the little fur bearer, a mussel in his paws. With a sigh of relief Walter heard the click of the shutter in response to the squeeze of the bulb, held in his left hand. Then as the rat made a frightened plunge, he remembered that he had forgotten to withdraw the slide before making the exposure.

It is an error the novice frequently makes and that the expert is sometimes guilty of. It was, therefore, not surprising that under the stress of excitement Walter should suffer this lapse of memory, but coming as it did immediately after his other fiasco, it was almost more than he could bear.