ures sadly, after their fashion"; and
thinks if he lived now, he would say of Americans, "they take their
pleasures hurriedly, after their fashion." Perhaps.

It is an age of hurry and worry. Anything slower than steam is apt to
"get left." Fortunes are quickly made and freely spent. Nearly all
busy, hard-worked Americans have an intuitive sense of the need that
exists for at least one period of rest and relaxation during each year
and all--or nearly all--are willing to pay liberally, too liberally in
fact, for anything that conduces to rest, recreation and sport. I am
sorry to say that we mostly get swindled. As an average, the summer
outer who goes to forest, lake or stream for health and sport, gets
about ten cents' worth for a dollar of outlay. A majority will admit--
to themselves at least--that after a month's vacation, they return to
work with an inward consciousness of being somewhat disappointed and
beaten. We are free with our money when we have it. We are known
throughout the civilized world for our lavishness in paying for our
pleasures; but it humiliates us to know we have been beaten, and this
is what the most of us know at the end of a summer vacation. To the man
of millions it makes little difference. He is able to pay liberally for
boats, buckboards and "body service," if he chooses to spend a summer
in the North Woods. He has no need to study the questions of lightness
and economy in a Forest and Stream outing. Let his guides take care of
him; and unto them and the landlords he will give freely of his
substance.

I do not write for him and can do him little good. But there are
hundreds of thousands of practical, useful men, many of them far from
being rich; mechanics, artists, writers, merchants, clerks, business
men--workers, so to speak--who sorely need and well deserve a season of
rest and relaxation at least once a year. To these and for these, I
write.

Perhaps more than fifty years of devotion to "woodcraft" may enable me
to give a few useful hints and suggestions to those whose dreams,
during the close season of work, are of camp-life by flood, field and
forest.

I have found that nearly all who have a real love of nature and
out-of-door camp-life, spend a good deal of time and talk in planning
future trips, or discussing the trips and pleasures gone by, but still
dear to memory.

When the mountain streams are frozen and the Nor'land winds are out;
when the winter winds are drifting the b