There is a universal saying to the effect that it is when men are off in the wilds that they show themselves as they really are. As is the case with the majority of proverbs there is much truth in it, for without the minor comforts of life to smooth things down, and with even the elemental necessities more or less problematical, the inner man has an unusual opportunity of showing himself—and he is not always attractive. A man may be a pleasant companion when you always meet him clad in dry clothes, and certain of substantial meals at regulated intervals, but the same cheery individual may seem a very different person when you are both on half rations, eaten cold, and have been drenched for three days—sleeping from utter exhaustion, cramped and wet.
My father had done much hunting with many and varied friends. I have often heard him say of some one whom I had thought an ideal hunting companion: “He’s a good fellow, but he was always fishing about in the pot for the best piece of meat, and if there was but one partridge shot, he would try to roast it for himself. If there was any delicacy he wanted more than his share.” Things assume such different proportions in the wilds; after two months living on palm-tree tops and monkeys, a ten-cent can of condensed milk bought for three dollars from a rubber explorer far exceeds in value the greatest delicacy of the season to the ordinary citizen who has a varied and sufficient menu at his command every day in the year.
Even as small children father held us responsible to the law of the jungle. He would take us out on camping trips to a neck of land four or five miles across the bay from home. We would row there in the afternoon, the boats laden with blankets and food. Then we would make a driftwood fire on which to fry our supper—usually bacon and chicken. I do not know whether it was the, to us, wild romance of our position, or the keen appetite from the row, but never since then have I eaten such bacon. Not even the smallest child was allowed to show a disposition to grab, or select his pieces of chicken—we were taught that that was an unpardonable offense out camping, and might cause the culprit to be left behind next time. And woe to any one who in clumsily walking about kicked sand into the frying-pan. After supper we would heap more driftwood on the fire, and drape ourselves in our blankets. Then we would stretch ourselves out in the sand while father would tell us ghost stories. The smallest of us lay within reach of father where we could touch him if the story became too vivid for our nerves and we needed the reassuring feel of his clothes to bring us back to reality. There was, however, a delicious danger in being too near him. In stories in which the “haunt” seized his victim, father generally illustrated the action by making a grab at the nearest child. After the stories were finished we rolled up in our blankets and, thoroughly permeated with sand, we slept until the first faint light of dawn. Then there was the fire to be built up, and the breakfast cooked, and the long row home. As we rowed we chanted a ballad, usually of a seafaring nature; it might be “The Rhyme of the Three Sealers,” or “The Galley Slave,” or “Simon Danz.” Father taught us these and many more, viva voce, when he was dressing for dinner. A child was not taken along on these “campings out” until he was six or seven. They took place three or four times a summer, and continued until after the African expedition. By that time we were most of us away at work, scattered far and wide.
Father always threw himself into our plays and romps when we were small as if he were no older than ourselves, and with all that he had seen and done and gone through, there was never any one with so fresh and enthusiastic an attitude. His wonderful versatility and his enormous power of concentration and absorption were unequalled. He could turn from the consideration of the most grave problems of state to romp with us children as if there were not a worry in the world. Equally could he bury himself in an exhaustive treatise on the History of the Mongols or in the Hound of the Baskervilles.
Until father sold his ranches in North Dakota he used to go out West each year for a month or so. Unfortunately, we were none of us old enough to be taken along, but we would wait eagerly for his letters, and the recipient of what we called a picture letter gloried in the envy of the rest until another mail placed a substitute upon the pedestal. In these picture letters father would sketch scenes and incidents about the ranch or on his short hunting trips.
