By some it is mixed with twice its quantity of wheat flour, and is thus used in the preparation of quite a variety of palatable dishes.  One or two pounds of salt pork will also be found a valuable addition; boxes of pepper and salt and soda should also be carried.  With these simple provisions alone, relying on his gun, traps and fishing tackle for animal food, the young trapper may rely on three enjoyable meals a day, if he is anything of a cook.  Pork fritters are not to be despised, even at a hotel table; and with the above they can be made to suit the palate of the most fastidious.

Indian meal is a valuable accessory with cooks generally, and to the trapper it often becomes his great “staff of life.”  If our young enthusiast desires to try his hand at roughing it to the fullest extent, compatible with common sense and the strength of an ordinary physical constitution, he may endeavor to content himself with the above portable rations; but with anything less it becomes too much like starvation to arouse our enthusiasm.  For cooking utensils, a small frying-pan and a deep tin basin are indispensable; and a drinking cup is also to be desired.  The kind known as the telescope cup, constructed in three parts, which close within each other, when not in use, possesses great advantages on account of its portability.  With these one can get along pretty decently.

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The pork fritters already mentioned form a favorite dish with trappers generally, and can be made in the following [Page 232] way; have at hand a thick batter of the Indian meal and flour; cut a few slices of the pork, and fry them in the frying-pan until the fat is tried out; cut a few more slices of the pork; dip them in the batter and drop them in the bubbling fat, seasoning with salt and pepper; cook until light brown and eat while hot.  The question now arises, “What shall we eat them with?” If you are “roughing it,” such luxuries as plates and knifes and forks are surely out of the question; and you must content yourself with a pair of chop sticks “a la Chinee,” or make your jackknife do double purpose, using a flat chip or stone as a plate.  A small tin plate may be added to the list of utensils if desired, but we are now confining ourselves to the “lowest limit” of absolute necessities.  That wholesome dish known as “boiled mush,” may come under the above bill of fare; and fried mush is an old stand-by to the rough and ready trapper.  In the first case the Indian meal is slowly boiled for one hour, and then seasoned as eaten.  It is then allowed to cool, and is cut in slices and fried in fat.  Indian meal cakes are easily made by dropping a quantity of the hot mush in the frying-pan, having previously stirred in a small quantity of soda, and turning it as soon as the lower side is browned.  A Johnny cake thus made is always appetizing, and with the addition of a little sugar, it becomes a positive luxury.  Hoe cakes, so much relished by many, can be made by mixing up a quantity