results obtained--can be solved only by the one formula. And that
formula is, again, _go light_, for a superabundance of paraphernalia
proves always more of a care than a satisfaction. When the woods offer
you a thing ready made, it is the merest foolishness to transport that
same thing a hundred miles for the sake of the manufacturer's trademark.

I once met an outfit in the North Woods, plodding diligently across
portage, laden like the camels of the desert. Three Indians swarmed
back and forth a half-dozen trips apiece. An Indian can carry over two
hundred pounds. That evening a half-breed and I visited their camp and
examined their outfit, always with growing wonder. They had tent-poles
and about fifty pounds of hardwood tent pegs--in a wooded country where
such things can be had for a clip of the axe. They had a system of
ringed iron bars which could be so fitted together as to form a low
open grill on which trout could be broiled--weight twenty pounds, and
split wood necessary for its efficiency. They had air mattresses and
camp-chairs and oil lanterns. They had corpulent duffel bags apiece
that would stand alone, and enough changes of clothes to last out
dry-skinned a week's rain. And the leader of the party wore the
wrinkled brow of tribulation. For he had to keep track of everything
and see that package number twenty-eight was not left, and that package
number sixteen did not get wet; that the pneumatic bed did not get
punctured, and that the canned goods did. Beside which, the caravan was
moving at the majestic rate of about five miles a day.

Now tent-pegs can always be cut, and trout broiled beautifully by a
dozen other ways, and candle lanterns fold up, and balsam can be laid
in such a manner as to be as springy as a pneumatic mattress, and
camp-chairs, if desired, can be quickly constructed with an axe, and
clothes can always be washed or dried as long as fire burns and water