Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

CHAPTER XVBARK UTENSILS—BAST ROPES ANDTWINE—ROOT AND VINE CORDAGE-WITHES AND SPLITSAmong the many interesting woodsmen that Ihave known was one who, years agone, had lived along time alone in the forest, not far from whereDaniel Boone's last cabin was built, in what is nowSt. Charles County, Missouri. I call him a woodsman,because he had to be, and loved to be, a realone ; but beyond that he was a scholar. In his youngmanhood he took to the woods that he might gainfirst-hand knowledge of Nature, and have leisurefor a colossal labor of love:that of translating into.English, with his own exegesis, the works of thephilosopher Hegel. When the Civil War brokeout, this hermit abandoned his cabin and raiseda body of volunteers to defend the Union. Afterwardhe became Lieutenant Governor of his State.One day we were discussing those traits of ourold-time frontiersmen that made them irresistibleas conquerors of the West. The Colonel lamed,as one factor, their extraordinary shiftiness in shapingthe simplest or most unlikely means to Importantends, and he illustrated It with an anecdote."I knew an old man of the Leatherstocking typewho once was far away and alone In the wilderness,hunting and trapping, when the mainspringof hi? flint-lock rifle broke. Now what do you supposehe did?""Made a new one out of an odd bit of steel.'*"No, sir: he had no bit of steel."2S^