Fried things are the easiest to cook because you can tell when they are done more easily.  Fried food however is always objectionable and as little of it should be eaten as possible.  You are not much of a camp cook if a frying pan is your only tool.

A bottle of catsup or some pickles will often give just the right taste to things that otherwise seem to be lacking in flavour.

In frying fish, always have the pan piping hot.  Test the grease by dropping in a bread crumb.  It should quickly turn brown.  “Piping hot” does not mean smoking or grease on fire.  Dry the fish thoroughly with a towel before putting them into the pan.  Then they will be crisp and flaky instead of grease-soaked.  The same rule is true of potatoes.  If you put the latter on brown butcher’s paper when they are done, they will be greatly improved.

Nearly every camper will start to do things away from home that he would never think of doing under his own roof.  One of these is to drink great quantities of strong coffee three times a day.  If you find that after you turn in for the night, you are lying awake for a long time watching the stars and listening to the fish splashing in the lake or the hoot owl mournfully “too-hooing” far off in the woods, do not blame your bed or commence to wonder if you are not getting sick.  Just cut out the coffee, that’s all.

V

WOODCRAFT

The use of an axe and hatchet—­Best woods for special purposes—­What to do when you are lost—­Nature’s compasses

The word “woodcraft” simply means skill in anything which pertains to the woods.  The boy who can read and understand nature’s signboards, who knows the names of the various trees and can tell which are best adapted to certain purposes, what berries and roots are edible, the habits of game and the best way to trap or capture them, in short the boy that knows how to get along without the conveniences of civilization and is self-reliant and manly, is a student of woodcraft.  No one can hope to become a master woodsman.  What he learns in one section may be of little value in some other part of the country.

A guide from Maine or Canada might be comparatively helpless in Florida or the Tropics, where the vegetation, wild animal life, and customs of the woods are entirely different.  Most of us are hopeless tenderfeet anywhere, just like landlubbers on shipboard.  The real masters of woodcraft—­Indians, trappers, and guides—­are, as a rule, men who do not even know the meaning of the word “woodcraft.”

Some people think that to know woodcraft, we must take it up with a teacher, just as we might learn to play golf or tennis.  It is quite different from learning a game.  Most of what we learn, we shall have to teach ourselves.  Of course we must profit from the experience and observation of others, but no man’s opinion can take the place of the evidence of our own eyes.  A naturalist once told