Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

2i8CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTcamp will be properly made, and every one's vv^orkis done save the unfortunate scullion's.When camping with a pack-train, pile the packsneatly together and cover them with canvas, and similarlypile and protect the saddles, making especiallysure that the lash ropes cannot get wet, and thatnothing will be buried out of sight, off somewhereby itself, if snow falls during the night. Soldierlysystem in all such matters pays a big dividend intime and good temper.Even when stopping overnight, have a place foreverything and let everything be in its place.Novices or shiftless folk strew things about :.nd can'tfind them when needed. That is one reason why ittakes them twice as long as it should to make orbreak camp, and it is why they are forever losingthis and that, or leaving them behind and forgettingthem tillthey reach the next stopping place.If obliged to pitch the tent where there is notgood natural drainage, trench it, if the weather beat all dubious. It is miserable business to crawlout into a driving storm at night and dig a ditch bylantern-light — worse still to awake to a realizationthat trenching is too late to save your soakingpossessions. " Make yourself ready in your cabinfor the mischance of the hour, if so it hap."Dining Place.— It is wearisome to eat from theground; and as Thoreau says, " None is so poor thathe need sit on a pumpkin — that is shiftlessness.'^If stopping more than a day in one place, set up arustic table and benches, away from the tent andnear the cooking fire. Drive four stakes into theground for legs, nail cleats across the ends, andcover the top with boards or straight sticks. If youhave no nails, use forked stakes.By the way, nearly every made-up picture ot acamp shows crotches cut like Fig. 109. Why,good artists — why ? You may hunt half a day inthe woods to find such a natural crotch, and, if youshould find it, the thing would be good-for-nothing