Camping

No perfection of equipment or location, no special dispensation of the weather man, not even marvelous grub," can make a camping expedition a success. In this, as in most things, it is the spirit that matters most. If you go into camp prepared to "grouch," you will find plenty to grouch about. There may be too much rain and too many mosquitoes. The pota toes may be scorched, and your tent may get blown over because you didn't drive your tent pegs securely.

But you won't let such things spoil everything for your self and the others. You came to camp to rough it. If you had wanted to wallow in luxury you would have chosen a different place to spend your holiday.

The spirit of a camp is an intangible thing. It can

not be measured by a tapeline or a pint cup. But it is a perceptible thing for all that. You know when your camp hasn't it. You know when it has it.

coals, and

set your covered frying pan of batter in the hollow, where it will get heat above and below.

If you want nothing but a cooking fire, there is nothing better than an improvised fireplace of slabs of stone, set on end, with a wire grate on top to support the pans. A crib of small split sticks of hickory or blackjack oak, built up in rows across each other, under this will give you a splendid cooking fire.

For a cooking fire without a grate, pile twigs and split sticks in a pyramid around the starting material and drive in two uprights with a cross pole to which you can hang your kettle. A pair of logs placed like a V about the fire give you a convenient place to rest the frying pan when the wood burns down to coals.

Every person in camp should have his personal mess kit, consisting of knife, fork, spoon, plate, and cup. addition, there should be at least one stew pan and a frying pan with a cover, a coffee pot or tin pail, a large spoon, and a heavy carving knife.

Keep down the list of

these articles as much as pos sible. Camp cookery should not be an elaborate affair, or it loses half its charm. A fish fresh from the water, properly prepared and cooked on a stick over a fire beats any banquet. Speaking of stick cooking, "twist" or biscuit dough, baked on a peeled pole of sweet green wood, is an easily prepared and toothsome article of food.

"Grub" is good camp parlance. It is also an im portant matter to consider when you plan your trip.

The pamphlets on 'Cooking' and 'Camping', the `Handbook' itself, and 'The Pine Tree Patrol',' all published by the Boy Scouts, are full of suggestions.

It is made up of many things,—fair play, good fellow ship, kindliness, cheerfulness, the sense of "together ness," all for each and each for all. It is for you— all of you gain or to lose, to make or to mar.

The spirit of the camp is your spirit.