after dark, when hunting for the place the boys had camped, I met that deluded outfit moving supperless, homeless, lost, like ghosts in the glow of the fire line. Jones was cross and snapped at me when I asked him if he wasn't seeing a good deal of country. But I looked at the tired faces of the other members of the party, and my heart relented, and I headed them for a meadow.
"How far beyond is Squaw Dome?" asked Jones as he started.
"Sixteen miles—about," said I.
"About eight hours the way you and I travel, then," said he.
"About eight weeks the way you travel," amended a Ranger standing near.
Two days later a shakemaker came to help us fight fire.
"Oh, yes, they passed my place," said he. "I went out and tried to tell him he was off'n the trail, but he waved me aside. 'We have our maps,' says he, very lofty."
Twelve days subsequently I rode a day and a half to Jackass Meadow. They told us the Jones party just passed! I wonder what became of them, and how soon their barefooted horses got tender.
Now the tenderfoot one helps out, nor makes fun of, for he is merely inexperienced and will learn. But this man is in the mountains every summer. He likewise wishes to rope bears.
An Object Lesson
No better example could be instanced as to the value of camp alertness, efficiency, the use of one's head, and the willingness to take advice. I had with me at the time a younger brother whom I was putting through his first paces; and Jones was to me invaluable as an object lesson.
The purpose of this chapter is not to tell you how to do things, but how to go at them. If you can keep from getting lost, and if you can keep awake, you will at least reach home safe. Other items of mental and moral equipment you may need will come to you by natural development in the environment to which the wild life brings you.
CHAPTER II
COMMON SENSE IN THE WILDERNESS
Overburdening
THERE is more danger that a man take too much than too little into the wilderness. No matter how good his intentions may be, how conscientiously he may follow advice, or how carefully he may examine and re-examine his equipment, he will surely find that he is carrying a great many pounds more than his companions, the professionals at the business. At first this may affect him but little. He argues that he is constructed on a different pattern from these men, that his training and education are such as to have developed in him needs and habits such as they have never known. Preconceived notions, especially when one is fairly brought up in their influence, are most difficult to shake off. Since we have worn coats all our lives, we include a coat in our list of personal apparel just as unquestionably—even as unthinkingly—as we should include in our calculations air to breathe and water to drink. The coat is an institution so absolutely one of man's invariable garments that it never even occurs to him to examine into its use or uselessness. In like manner no city dweller brought up in proximity to laundries and on the firm belief that washing should be done all at once and at stated intervals can be convinced that he can keep clean and happy with but one shirt; or that more than one handkerchief is a superfluity.
Elimination
Yet in time, if he is a woodsman, and really thinks about such affairs instead of taking them for granted, he will inevitably gravitate toward the correct view of these things. Some day he will wake up to the fact that he never wears a coat when working or traveling; that about camp his sweater is more comfortable; and that in sober fact he uses that rather bulky garment as little as any article in his outfit. So he leaves it home, and is by so much disencumbered. In a similar manner he will realize that with the aid of cold-water soap the shirt he wears may be washed in one half hour and dried in the next. Meanwhile he dons his sweater, A handkerchief is laundered complete in a quarter of an hour. Why carry extras, then, merely from a recollection of full bureau drawers?
Essentials
In this matter it is exceedingly difficult to be honest with oneself. The best test is that of experience. What I have found to be of no use to me, may measure the difference between comfort and unhappiness to another man. Carry only essentials: but the definition of the word is not so easy. An essential is that which, by each man's individual experience, he has found he cannot do without.
How to Determine Essentials
How to determine that? I have elsewhere indicated[1] a practical expedient, which will however, bear repetition here. When you have reached home after your trip, turn your duffle bag upside down on the floor. Separate the contents into three piles. Let pile No. 1 include those articles you have used every day—or nearly that often; let pile No. 2 comprise those you have used but once; and pile No. 3 those you have not used at all. Now, no matter how your heart may yearn over the Patent Dingbat in No. 3, shut your eyes and resolutely discard the two latter piles.
Naturally, if you are strong-minded, pile No. 1 will be a synonym for your equipment. As a matter of fact you will probably not be as strong-minded as that. You will argue to yourself somewhat in this fashion:
"Yes, that is all very well; but it was only a matter of sheer chance that the Patent Dingbat is not in pile No. 1. To be sure, I did not use it on this particular trip; but in other conditions I might need it every day."
The Philosophy of Duffle
So you take it, and keep on taking it, and once in a great while you use it. Then some day you wake up to two more bits of camp philosophy which you formulate to yourself about as follows: An article must pay in convenience or comfort for the trouble of its transportation; and Substitution, even imperfect, is better than the carrying of special conveniences. Then he hurls said Patent Dingbat into the nearest pool.
Patent Dingbats
That hits directly at the weak point of the sporting catalogues. Every once in a while an enthusiast writes me of some new and handy kink he is ready to swear by. It is indeed handy; and if one could pluck it from the nearest bush when occasion for its use arose, it would be a joy and a delight. But carrying it four hundred miles to that occasion for its use is a very different matter. The sporting catalogues are full of very handy kinks. They are good to fool with and think about, and plan over in the off season; but when you pack your duffle bag you'd better put them on a shelf.
Occasionally, but mighty seldom, you will find that something you need very much has gone into pile No. 3. Make a note of it. But do not be too hasty to write it down as part of your permanent equipment.
You Must Not Mind Getting Wet Sometimes
The first summer I spent in the Sierras I discovered that small noon showers needed neither tent nor slicker. So next year I left them home, and was, off and on, plenty wet and cold. Immediately I jumped to the conclusion that I had made a mistake. It has not rained since. So I decided that sporadic heavy rains do not justify the transportation of two cumbersome articles. Now when it rains in daytime I don't mind getting a little wet—for it is
