AN INEXPENSIVE AND SUITABLE CAMP.
Having secured a high knoll, spring-water, and a tent to live in, the next question is food. Here again a great deal depends on whether the sportsman is out for big game, small game, or fish. Big game means camping in the West far from any habitations; small game may mean near to town or miles away; fishing is usually near civilization. Where it is possible, therefore, milk, fruit, vegetables, and even meat—such as chickens—should be bought from the nearest farmer, who usually will sell you what you want, or rather what he has, and what it will be well for you to be satisfied with, if you pay him cash on receipt of goods. If the camp site is ten or more miles from a house, then can goods and what game you secure must fill the bill of fare, with a possible journey to civilization once a week. The cooking is simple if a definite plan is followed. It may spoil the whole camping trip if it is not run on a methodical plan. At least fifty feet from the tent, and usually down in some near-by hollow, a "lean-to" should be constructed—that is, a slanting roof some six feet in height, and made of entwined branches. This may and should be curved, or made on three sides of a square, leaving a small space for an ordinary small one-cover laundry stove, or, in fact, any kind of a stove, which you can scrape up in the town or houses nearest your camp site. This primitive lean-to will keep off the wind from the stove, and you can cook there all that a camp of five or six boys want or should have. So much for the camp. There are more extensive outfits, of course, better ones in every way, but here is one that will cost little, except in time and care in selecting a site, and any boys, no matter how limited their pocket-books, can have such a camp if they have the time to give to camping at all.
A GOOD CAMP LOCATION.
The costume of such campers may be anything they see fit to wear. Usually knickers with stout shoes and a cheviot shirt is the best thing. Extra shoes and trousers must be carried along, because one is always getting wet if water is near, and wet shoes and clothes are not healthy. The best way to sleep in such a tent is to put on a thick suit of pajamas or some regular camp sleeping outfit, and then to roll yourself up in a blanket, and lie either on the ground or on a bed of bows, which is easily made. Rolling one's self up in a blanket is a science by itself, and an old-timer will give as much care to his "rolling-up" process each night as a mother will to tucking a baby in its crib on a cold night. In the first place, one end of the blanket is laid on the bows. Then the camper lays himself out on that end. He then draws the longer end of the robe over him as he lies on his back. This leaves nearly half the blanket still unused. He then turns on his side, so as to make the spare portion fall down behind his back, and by rolling completely over on his stomach, carrying the part of the blanket already under him with him, he will finally get to the other end of the robe, and by then rolling back again he will find himself wrapped up like a mummy, and in a condition to keep out dampness and cold far better than if he lay on a bed.
We have only a short space for a word as to the life in camp. And perhaps this is the most important part of the outfit. If you want to have a good time, keep yourself busy. Run down and take a plunge in lake, river, or sea the first thing after rising; then eat as soon as possible. After this, clean up camp. Give each man his work about the knoll for the day, and then start in at once to fish or shoot or what not. Never sit around and read or doze. Once a week, on Sunday, is quite enough for that sort of thing. All should assemble to dinner at one, and then the afternoon should be busy too. A hearty supper and an early bed are two good things to end the day with.