“Now to skirt the lonesome Catskills,” Harry said.

“Now to what them?” Dorry Benton asked him.

“Skirt them,” he said, “that’s Latin for hiking around the edge of them. We don’t want to be all the time stumbling over mountains.”

“Believe me, if I see one in the road, I’ll tell you,” I said.

“And we don’t want to get mixed up with panthers and wild cats either,” Harry said. And he gave me a wink.

“There aren’t any wild animals in the Catskills,” Charlie Seabury said.

“There are wild flowers,” I said, “but they won’t hurt anybody.”

“How about poison ivy?” Westy Martin said.

All the while as we hiked along the road toward Saugerties, we kept joking about the wild animals in the Catskills. Harry Donnelle said there used to be lots of wild cats and foxes, but not any more. He said there were some foxes, though.

Westy said, “I bet there are some bears; once Uncle Jeb saw a bear; he said there weren’t any foxes any more.”

“I guess there are some grey ones and maybe a few silver,” Harry Donnelle said.

“Silver?” I shouted. “Oh boy!” Then I asked him what they fed on mostly.

“Mostly on ice cream sodas,” he said; “they’re very dangerous after a half dozen raspberry sodas.”

We didn’t go near Saugerties, because we wanted to keep in the country, so we hit down southwest along the road that goes to Woodstock. Then we were going to hike it south past West Hurley so we’d bunk our noses right into the Ashokan Reservoir. And the next day we were going to spend trying to keep out of Kingston.

When it got to be about five o’clock in the afternoon, we hit in from the road to find a good place to camp. Maybe you think that’s easy, but you have to find a place where the drainage is good and where there’s good drinking water.

Pretty soon we found a dandy place about a quarter of a mile off the road, and we put up our tent there.

Harry Donnelle said, “There’s one kind of wild animal that I forgot to mention and I guess we’ll be hunting them all right; that’s mosquitoes. I guess one or two of you kids had better hit the trail for the nearest village and complete our shopping before we get any further. What do you say? We’re a little short on mosquito dope and we ought to have some crackers, and let’s see, a little meat would go good. I’m hungry.”

When we turned into the woods from the road, we knew that we were coming to a village and I guess that’s what put the idea into Harry’s head to have somebody go there and get two or three things that we hadn’t been able to get in Catskill. I told him that I’d go, because the rest would be busy getting in fire wood and I said it would be good if two or three of them tried to catch some fish in the brook.

Oh boy, I had hardly said that, when Ralph Warner shouted that he had a perch and that the brook was full of them. Harry Donnelle went over and saw for himself how it was, and then he came back and said to me that as long as there seemed to be plenty of fish I needn’t bother about meat, but that I’d better go and see if I could scare up some more mosquito dope and some sinkers for fishing and a trowel to dig bait with, because if we liked the place we might stay there till noon the next day. That’s the best way on a long hike—take it easy.

“How about Charlie Seabury?” I said; “he doesn’t like fish.”

“All right, get him a couple of chops, then,” Harry said; “now can you remember all the things you’re going to get? Mosquito dope, fishing sinkers, a writing pad and some stamps, and let’s see——”

“Some crackers,” I said.

“Righto,” he shouted after me.