Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 176: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Campfire ! A Free to All Meeting Place for Readers Writers - and Adventurers Our Camp-Fire came into being May 5, 1912, with our June issue, and since then its fire has never,died down. Many have gathered about it and they are of all classes and degrees, high and low, rich and poor, adventurers and stay-at-homes, and from all parts of the earth. Some whose voices we used to know have taken the Long Trail and are heard no more, but they are still memories among us, and new voices are heard, and welcomed. We are drawn together by a common liking for the strong, clean things of out-of- doors, for word from the earth’s far places, for man in action instead of caged by cire cumstance. The spirit of adventure lives in all men; the rest is chance. But something besides a common interest holds us together. Somehow a real come radeship has grown up among us. Men can not thus meet and talk together without growing into friendlier relations; many a time does one of us come to the rest for facts and guidance; many a close personal friendship has our Camp-Fire built up between two men who had never met; often has it proved an’ open-sesame between strangers in a far land. : Perhaps our Camp-Fire is even a little more. Perhaps it is a bit of leaven working gently among those of different station toward the fuller and more human understand- ing and sympathy that will some day bring to man the real democracy and brotherhood he seeks. and such great extremes as here. Few indeed are the agencies that bring together on a friendly footing so many And we are numbered by the hundred thousand now. . If you are come to our Camp-Fire for the first time and find you like the things we like, join us and find yourself very welcome. There is no obligation except ordinary manliness, no forms or ceremonies, no dues, no officers, no anything except men and women gathered for interest and friendliness. Your desire to join makes you a member, O* THE occasion of his first story in our magazine, J.D. Newsom follows Camp- Fire custom and rises to introduce himself. In spite of the rule against printing such things, I’ve gone and not cut out the last paragraph. Guess I haven’t any good ex- cuse to offer, except that so many of you do speak and think of it as “our” magazine that you are sort of entitled to hear some of the good wishes and compliments that come its way. Im free to say I enjoy hearing them and sometimes I feel as if we in the office were sort of hogging them. On the other hand, we certainly won’t turn Camp-Fire into a self-praise party. Philadelphia. An invitation to join‘the Camp-Fire can not be refused. It is a privilege to foregather with Men. Though I am a good listener, I find it difficult to talk sboitt myself; somany others have gone farther and seen more; so many others are better qualified to talk. However, a newcomer should at least; for the sake of friendship, give a brief account of him- self. Here’s how: WAS born in China, and the weird stories of great dragons and strange gods which my aya whispered at twilight put a spel! over me, a wandere lust for the waste places, the odd corners of the earth. In a measure I have satisfied my desire: Europe, North America, Australia, India, Egypt, and the less popular islands of the south Pacific © where are no ukuleles and no goddesses with golden skin. I devoted four years and some odd months to the recent disturbance in Europe, sometime com- mander of a six-gun battery of field artillery, later, when the attentive enemy had mishandled certain outlying portions of my anatomy, an observer in a balloon section of the Flying Corps. An airman of the opposition (a very brave man) dropped .out of the clouds and used a machine-gun with great precision on my gas-bag, wherefore my career as a sojer came to an abrupt end when the fields of northern Francé rose up to meet my swaying parachute. ‘TBAT about covers the tale of my wanderings though I have not observed a faithful chronolog- ical order. This, however, can be of little impor- tance. My interest in my fellow creatures made me take an interest in ethnology and allied sciences, and my two great hobbies are “readin’ and writin’.”” Iam aching to get to Lhasa before trolleys, electricity and enameled bathtubs are . 174 (COMME OC) () (©) Ss —