single light blanket, while a good vigorous rain-storm made new cold
places on me and under me all night. In the morning the cowboy with
whom I was travelling remarked that this was "sure a lonesome
proposition as a camp."

Between these two extremes is infinite variety, grading upwards through
the divers bivouacs of snow, plains, pines, or hills to the bark
shelter; past the dog-tent, the A-tent, the wall-tent, to the elaborate
permanent canvas cottage of the luxurious camper, the dug-out winter
retreat of the range cowboy, the trapper's cabin, the great log-built
lumber-jack communities, and the last refinements of sybaritic summer
homes in the Adirondacks. All these are camps. And when you talk of
making camp you must know whether that process is to mean only a search
for rattlesnakes and enough acrid-smoked fuel to boil tea, or a
winter's consultation with an expert architect; whether your camp is to
be made on the principle of Omar's one-night Sultan, or whether it is
intended to accommodate the full days of an entire summer.

But to those who tread the Long Trail the making of camp resolves
itself into an algebraical formula. After a man has travelled all day
through the Northern wilderness he wants to rest, and anything that
stands between himself and his repose he must get rid of in as few
motions as is consistent with reasonable thoroughness. The end in view
is a hot meal and a comfortable dry place to sleep. The straighter he
can draw the line to those two points the happier he is.

Early in his woods experience, Dick became possessed with the desire to
do everything for himself. As this was a laudable striving for
self-sufficiency, I called a halt at about three o'clock one afternoon
in order to give him plenty of time.