trunk. It keeps out ants and things; and you can
lock it when you go away on long excursions. As to beds, each to his own
taste! Some like the rolled rubber mattress. Too much trouble for me.
Besides, I am never comfortable on it. If you camp near the snow peaks,
a chill strikes up to the small of your back in the small of the
morning. I don't care to feel like using a derrick every time I roll
over. The most comfortable bed I know is a piece of twenty-five cent
oilcloth laid over the slicker on hemlock boughs, fur rug over that,
with suit case for pillow, and a plain gray blanket. The hardened
mountaineer will laugh at the next recommendation; but the town man or
woman going out for play or health is not hardened, and to attempt
sudden hardening entails the endurance of a lot of aches that are apt to
spoil the holiday. You may say you like the cold plunge in the icy water
coming off a snowy mountain. I confess I don't; and you'll acknowledge,
even if you do like it, you are in such a hurry to come out of it that
you don't linger to scrub. I like my hot scrub; and you can have that
only by taking along (no, not a rubber bath) a $1.50 camp stove to heat
the water in the tent while you are eating your supper out round the
camp fire that burns with such a delicious, barky smell. Besides, late
in the season, there will be rains and mist. Your camp stove will dry
out the tent walls and keep your kit free of rain mold. Do you need a
guide? That depends entirely on yourself. If you camp under direction
and within range of the district forester, I do not think you do.

Whether you go out as a health seeker, or a pleasure seeker, $8 to $10
will buy you a miner's tent--a miner's, preferable to a tepee because
the walls lift the canvas roof high enough not to bump your head; $2
will buy you a tin trunk or grub box; $1.50 will cover the price of
oilcloth to spread over the boughs which you lay all over the floor to
keep you above the earth damp; $2 will buy you a little tin camp stove
to keep the inside of your tent warm and dry for the hot night bath; $10
will cover cost of pail and cooking utensils. That leaves of what would
be your monthly expenses at even a moderate hotel, $125 for food--bacon,
flour, fresh fruit; and your food should not exceed $10 each a month. If
you are a good fisherman, you will add to the larder, by whipping the
mountain streams for trout. If you need an attendant, that miner's tent
is big enough for two.