Produced by Dianne Bean. HTML version by Al Haines.
THE MOUNTAINS
BY
STEWART EDWARD WHITE
AUTHOR OF
"THE BLAZED TRAIL," "SILENT PLACES," "THE FOREST," ETC.
PREFACE
The author has followed a true sequence of events practically in all
particulars save in respect to the character of the Tenderfoot. He is
in one sense fictitious; in another sense real. He is real in that he
is the apotheosis of many tenderfeet, and that everything he does in
this narrative he has done at one time or another in the author's
experience. He is fictitious in the sense that he is in no way to be
identified with the third member of our party in the actual trip.
CONTENTS
I. THE RIDGE TRAIL
II. ON EQUIPMENT
III. ON HORSES
IV. HOW TO GO ABOUT IT
V. THE COAST RANGES
VI. THE INFERNO
VII. THE FOOT-HILLS
VIII. THE PINES
IX. THE TRAIL
X. ON SEEING DEER
XI. ON TENDERFEET
XII. THE CAÑON
XIII. TROUT, BUCKSKIN, AND PROSPECTORS
XIV. ON CAMP COOKERY
XV. ON THE WIND AT NIGHT
XVI. THE VALLEY
XVII. THE MAIN CREST
XVIII. THE GIANT FOREST
XIX. ON COWBOYS
XX. THE GOLDEN TROUT
XXI. ON GOING OUT
XXII. THE LURE OF THE TRAIL
THE MOUNTAINS
I
THE RIDGE TRAIL
Six trails lead to the main ridge. They are all good trails, so that
even the casual tourist in the little Spanish-American town on the
seacoast need have nothing to fear from the ascent. In some spots they
contract to an arm's length of space, outside of which limit they drop
sheer away; elsewhere they stand up on end, zigzag in lacets each more
hair-raising than the last, or fill to demoralization with loose
boulders and shale. A fall on the part of your horse would mean a more
than serious accident; but Western horses do not fall. The major
premise stands: even the casual tourist has no real reason for fear,
however scared he may become.
Our favorite route to the main ridge was by a way called the Cold
Spring Trail. We used to enjoy taking visitors up it, mainly because
you come on the top suddenly, without warning. Then we collected
remarks. Everybody, even the most stolid, said something.
You rode three miles on the flat, two in the leafy and gradually
ascending creek-bed of a cañon, a half hour of laboring steepness in
the overarching mountain lilac and laurel. There you came to a great
rock gateway which seemed the top of the world. At the gateway was a
Bad Place where the ponies planted warily their little hoofs, and the
visitor played "eyes front," and besought that his mount should not
stumble.
Beyond the gateway a lush level cañon into which you plunged as into a
bath; then again the laboring trail, up and always up toward the blue
California sky, out of the lilacs, and laurels, and redwood chaparral
into the manzanita, the Spanish bayonet, the creamy yucca, and the fine
angular shale of the upper regions. Beyond the apparent summit you
found always other summits yet to be climbed. And all at once, like
thrusting your shoulders out of a hatchway, you looked over the top.
Then came the remarks. Some swore softly; some uttered appreciative
ejaculation; some shouted aloud; some gasped; one man uttered three
times the word "Oh,"--once breathlessly, Oh! once in awakening
appreciation, OH! once in wild enthusiasm, OH! Then invariably they
fell silent and looked.
For the ridge, ascending from seaward in a gradual coquetry of
foot-hills, broad low ranges, cross-systems, cañons, little flats, and
gentle ravines, inland dropped off almost sheer to the river below.
And from under your very feet rose, range after range, tier after tier,
rank after rank, in increasing crescendo of wonderful tinted mountains
to the main crest of the Coast Ranges, the blue distance, the
mightiness of California's western systems. The eye followed them up
and up, and farther and farther, with the accumulating emotion of a
wild rush on a toboggan. There came a point where the fact grew to be
almost too big for the appreciation, just as beyond a certain point
speed seems to become unbearable. It left you breathless,
wonder-stricken, awed. You could do nothing but look, and look, and
look again, tongue-tied by the impossibility of doing justice to what
you felt. And in the far distance, finally, your soul, grown big in a
moment, came to rest on the great precipices and pines of the greatest
mountains of all, close under the sky.
In a little, after the change had come to you, a change definite and
enduring, which left your inner processes forever different from what
they had been, you turned sharp to the west and rode five miles along
the knife-edge Ridge Trail to where Rattlesnake Cañon led you down and
back to your accustomed environment.
To the left as you rode you saw, far on the horizon, rising to the
height of your eye, the mountains of the channel islands. Then the
deep sapphire of the Pacific, fringed with the soft, unchanging white
of the surf and the yellow of the shore. Then the town like a little
map, and the lush greens of the wide meadows, the fruit-groves, the
lesser ranges--all vivid, fertile, brilliant, and pulsating with
vitality. You filled your senses with it, steeped them in the beauty of
it. And at once, by a mere turn of the eyes, from the almost crude
insistence of the bright primary color of life, you faced the tenuous
azures of distance, the delicate mauves and amethysts, the lilacs and
saffrons of the arid country.
This was the wonder we never tired of seeing for ourselves, of showing
to others. And often, academically, perhaps a little wistfully, as one
talks of something to be dreamed of but never enjoyed, we spoke of how
fine it would be to ride down into that land of mystery and
enchantment, to penetrate one after another the cañons dimly outlined
in the shadows cast by the westering sun, to cross the mountains lying
outspread in easy grasp of the eye, to gain the distant blue Ridge, and
see with our own eyes what lay beyond.
For to its other attractions the prospect added that of impossibility,
of unattainableness. These rides of ours were day rides. We had to
get home by nightfall. Our horses had to be fed, ourselves to be
housed. We had not time to continue on down the other side whither the
trail led. At the very and literal brink of achievement we were forced
to turn back.
Gradually the idea possessed us. We promised ourselves that some day
we would explore. In our after-dinner smokes we spoke of it.
Occasionally, from some hunter or forest-ranger, we gained little items
of information, we learned the fascination of musical names--Mono
Cañon, Patrera Don Victor, Lloma Paloma, Patrera Madulce, Cuyamas,
became familiar to us as syllables. We desired mightily to body them
forth to ourselves as facts. The extent of our mental vision expanded.
We heard of other mountains far beyond these farthest--mountains whose
almost unexplored vastnesses contained great forests, mighty valleys,
strong water-courses, beautiful hanging-meadows, deep cañons of
granite, eternal snows,--mountains so extended, so wonderful, that
their secrets offered whole summers of solitary exploration. We came
to feel their marvel, we came to respect the inferno of the Desert that
hemmed them in. Shortly we graduated from the indefiniteness of
railroad maps to the intricacies of geological survey charts. The
fever was on us. We must go.
A dozen of us desired. Three of us went; and of the manner of our
going, and what you must know who would do likewise, I shall try here
to tell.
II
ON EQUIPMENT
If you would travel far in the great mountains where the trails are few
and bad, you will need a certain unique experience and skill. Before
you dare venture forth without a guide, you must be able to do a number
of things, and to do them well.
First and foremost of all, you must be possessed of that strange sixth
sense best described as the sense of direction. By it you always know
about where you are. It is to some degree a memory for back-tracks and
landmarks, but to a greater extent an instinct for the lay of the
country, for relative bearings, by which you are able to make your way
across-lots back to your starting-place. It is not an uncommon
faculty, yet some lack it utterly. If you are one of the latter class,
do not venture, for you will get lost as sure as shooting, and being
lost in the mountains is no joke.
Some men possess it; others do not. The distinction seems to be almost
arbitrary. It can be largely developed, but only in those with whom
original endowment of the faculty makes development possible. No matter
how long a direction-blind man frequents the wilderness, he is never
sure of himself. Nor is the lack any reflection on the intelligence. I
once traveled in the Black Hills with a young fellow who himself
frankly confessed that after much experiment he had come to the
conclusion he could not "find himself." He asked me to keep near him,
and this I did as well as I could; but even then, three times during
the course of ten days he lost himself completely in the tumultuous
upheavals and cañons of that badly mixed region. Another, an old
grouse-hunter, walked twice in a circle within the confines of a thick
swamp about two miles square. On the other hand, many exhibit almost
marvelous skill in striking a bee-line for their objective point, and
can always tell you, even after an engrossing and wandering hunt,
exactly where camp lies. And I know nothing more discouraging than to
look up after a long hard day to find your landmarks changed in
appearance, your choice widened to at least five diverging and similar
cañons, your pockets empty of food, and the chill mountain twilight
descending.
Analogous to this is the ability to follow a dim trail. A trail in the
mountains often means merely a way through, a route picked out by some
prospector, and followed since at long intervals by chance travelers.
It may, moreover, mean the only way through. Missing it will bring you
to ever-narrowing ledges, until at last you end at a precipice, and
there is no room to turn your horses around for the return. Some of
the great box cañons thousands of feet deep are practicable by but one
passage,--and that steep and ingenious in its utilization of ledges,
crevices, little ravines, and "hog's-backs"; and when the only
indications to follow consist of the dim vestiges left by your last
predecessor, perhaps years before, the affair becomes one of
considerable skill and experience. You must be able to pick out
scratches made by shod hoofs on the granite, depressions almost filled
in by the subsequent fall of decayed vegetation, excoriations on fallen
trees. You must have the sense to know AT ONCE when you have overrun
these indications, and the patience to turn back immediately to your
last certainty, there to pick up the next clue, even if it should take
you the rest of the day. In short, it is absolutely necessary that you
be at least a persistent tracker.
Parenthetically; having found the trail, be charitable. Blaze it, if
there are trees; otherwise "monument" it by piling rocks on top of one
another. Thus will those who come after bless your unknown shade.
Third, you must know horses. I do not mean that you should be a
horse-show man, with a knowledge of points and pedigrees. But you must
learn exactly what they can and cannot do in the matters of carrying
weights, making distance, enduring without deterioration hard climbs in
high altitudes; what they can or cannot get over in the way of bad
places. This last is not always a matter of appearance merely. Some
bits of trail, seeming impassable to anything but a goat, a Western
horse will negotiate easily; while others, not particularly terrifying
in appearance, offer complications of abrupt turn or a single bit of
unstable, leg-breaking footing which renders them exceedingly
dangerous. You must, moreover, be able to manage your animals to the
best advantage in such bad places. Of course you must in the beginning
have been wise as to the selection of the horses.
Fourth, you must know good horse-feed when you see it. Your animals
are depending entirely on the country; for of course you are carrying
no dry feed for them. Their pasturage will present itself under a
variety of aspects, all of which you must recognize with certainty.
Some of the greenest, lushest, most satisfying-looking meadows grow
nothing but water-grasses of large bulk but small nutrition; while
apparently barren tracts often conceal small but strong growths of
great value. You must differentiate these.
Fifth, you must possess the ability to pare a hoof, fit a shoe cold,
nail it in place. A bare hoof does not last long on the granite, and
you are far from the nearest blacksmith. Directly in line with this,
you must have the trick of picking up and holding a hoof without being
kicked, and you must be able to throw and tie without injuring him any
horse that declines to be shod in any other way.
Last, you must of course be able to pack a horse well, and must know
four or five of the most essential pack-"hitches."
With this personal equipment you ought to be able to get through the
country. It comprises the absolutely essential.
But further, for the sake of the highest efficiency, you should add, as
finish to your mountaineer's education, certain other items. A
knowledge of the habits of deer and the ability to catch trout with
fair certainty are almost a necessity when far from the base of
supplies. Occasionally the trail goes to pieces entirely: there you
must know something of the handling of an axe and pick. Learn how to
swim a horse. You will have to take lessons in camp-fire cookery.
Otherwise employ a guide. Of course your lungs, heart, and legs must
be in good condition.
As to outfit, certain especial conditions will differentiate your needs
from those of forest and canoe travel.
You will in the changing altitudes be exposed to greater variations in
temperature. At morning you may travel in the hot arid foot-hills; at
noon you will be in the cool shades of the big pines; towards evening
you may wallow through snowdrifts; and at dark you may camp where
morning will show you icicles hanging from the brinks of little
waterfalls. Behind your saddle you will want to carry a sweater, or
better still a buckskin waistcoat. Your arms are never cold anyway,
and the pockets of such a waistcoat, made many and deep, are handy
receptacles for smokables, matches, cartridges, and the like. For the
night-time, when the cold creeps down from the high peaks, you should
provide yourself with a suit of very heavy underwear and an extra
sweater or a buckskin shirt. The latter is lighter, softer, and more
impervious to the wind than the sweater. Here again I wish to place
myself on record as opposed to a coat. It is a useless ornament,
assumed but rarely, and then only as substitute for a handier garment.
Inasmuch as you will be a great deal called on to handle abrading and
sometimes frozen ropes, you will want a pair of heavy buckskin
gauntlets. An extra pair of stout high-laced boots with small
Hungarian hob-nails will come handy. It is marvelous how quickly
leather wears out in the downhill friction of granite and shale. I
once found the heels of a new pair of shoes almost ground away by a
single giant-strides descent of a steep shale-covered
thirteen-thousand-foot mountain. Having no others I patched them with
hair-covered rawhide and a bit of horseshoe. It sufficed, but was a
long and disagreeable job which an extra pair would have obviated.
Balsam is practically unknown in the high hills, and the rocks are
especially hard. Therefore you will take, in addition to your gray
army-blanket, a thick quilt or comforter to save your bones. This,
with your saddle-blankets and pads as foundation, should give you
ease--if you are tough. Otherwise take a second quilt.
A tarpaulin of heavy canvas 17 x 6 feet goes under you, and can be, if
necessary, drawn up to cover your head. We never used a tent. Since
you do not have to pack your outfit on your own back, you can, if you
choose, include a small pillow. Your other personal belongings are
those you would carry into the Forest. I have elsewhere described what
they should be.
Now as to the equipment for your horses.
The most important point for yourself is your riding-saddle. The
cowboy or military style and seat are the only practicable ones.
Perhaps of these two the cowboy saddle is the better, for the simple
reason that often in roping or leading a refractory horse, the horn is
a great help. For steep-trail work the double cinch is preferable to
the single, as it need not be pulled so tight to hold the saddle in
place.
Your riding-bridle you will make of an ordinary halter by riveting two
snaps to the lower part of the head-piece just above the corners of the
horse's mouth. These are snapped into the rings of the bit. At night
you unsnap the bit, remove it and the reins, and leave the halter part
on the horse. Each animal, riding and packing, has furthermore a short
lead-rope attached always to his halter-ring.
Of pack-saddles the ordinary sawbuck tree is by all odds the best,
provided it fits. It rarely does. If you can adjust the wood
accurately to the anatomy of the individual horse, so that the side
pieces bear evenly and smoothly without gouging the withers or chafing
the back, you are possessed of the handiest machine made for the
purpose. Should individual fitting prove impracticable, get an old LOW
California riding-tree and have a blacksmith bolt an upright spike on
the cantle. You can hang the loops of the kyacks or alforjas--the
sacks slung on either side the horse--from the pommel and this iron
spike. Whatever the saddle chosen, it should be supplied with
breast-straps, breeching, and two good cinches.
The kyacks or alforjas just mentioned are made either of heavy canvas,
or of rawhide shaped square and dried over boxes. After drying, the
boxes are removed, leaving the stiff rawhide like small trunks open at
the top. I prefer the canvas, for the reason that they can be folded
and packed for railroad transportation. If a stiffer receptacle is
wanted for miscellaneous loose small articles, you can insert a
soap-box inside the canvas. It cannot be denied that the rawhide will
stand rougher usage.
Probably the point now of greatest importance is that of
saddle-padding. A sore back is the easiest thing in the world to
induce,--three hours' chafing will turn the trick,--and once it is done
you are in trouble for a month. No precautions or pains are too great
to take in assuring your pack-animals against this. On a pinch you
will give up cheerfully part of your bedding to the cause. However,
two good-quality woolen blankets properly and smoothly folded, a pad
made of two ordinary collar-pads sewed parallel by means of canvas
strips in such a manner as to lie along both sides of the backbone, a
well-fitted saddle, and care in packing will nearly always suffice. I
have gone months without having to doctor a single abrasion.
You will furthermore want a pack-cinch and a pack-rope for each horse.
The former are of canvas or webbing provided with a ring at one end and
a big bolted wooden hook at the other. The latter should be half-inch
lines of good quality. Thirty-three feet is enough for packing only;
but we usually bought them forty feet long, so they could be used also
as picket-ropes. Do not fail to include several extra. They are
always fraying out, getting broken, being cut to free a fallen horse,
or becoming lost.
Besides the picket-ropes, you will also provide for each horse a pair
of strong hobbles. Take them to a harness-maker and have him sew
inside each ankle-band a broad strip of soft wash-leather twice the
width of the band. This will save much chafing. Some advocate
sheepskin with the wool on, but this I have found tends to soak up
water or to freeze hard. At least two loud cow-bells with neck-straps
are handy to assist you in locating whither the bunch may have strayed
during the night. They should be hung on the loose horses most
inclined to wander.
Accidents are common in the hills. The repair-kit is normally rather
comprehensive. Buy a number of extra latigos, or cinch-straps.
Include many copper rivets of all sizes--they are the best quick-repair
known for almost everything, from putting together a smashed
pack-saddle to cobbling a worn-out boot. Your horseshoeing outfit
should be complete with paring-knife, rasp, nail-set, clippers, hammer,
nails, and shoes. The latter will be the malleable soft iron,
low-calked "Goodenough," which can be fitted cold. Purchase a dozen
front shoes and a dozen and a half hind shoes. The latter wear out
faster on the trail. A box or so of hob-nails for your own boots, a
waxed end and awl, a whetstone, a file, and a piece of buckskin for
strings and patches complete the list.
Thus equipped, with your grub supply, your cooking-utensils, your
personal effects, your rifle and your fishing-tackle, you should be
able to go anywhere that man and horses can go, entirely self-reliant,
independent of the towns.
III
ON HORSES
I really believe that you will find more variation of individual and
interesting character in a given number of Western horses than in an
equal number of the average men one meets on the street. Their whole
education, from the time they run loose on the range until the time
when, branded, corralled, broken, and saddled, they pick their way
under guidance over a bad piece of trail, tends to develop their
self-reliance. They learn to think for themselves.
To begin with two misconceptions, merely by way of clearing the ground:
the Western horse is generally designated as a "bronco." The term is
considered synonymous of horse or pony. This is not so. A horse is
"bronco" when he is ugly or mean or vicious or unbroken. So is a cow
"bronco" in the same condition, or a mule, or a burro. Again, from
certain Western illustrators and from a few samples, our notion of the
cow-pony has become that of a lean, rangy, wiry, thin-necked, scrawny
beast. Such may be found. But the average good cow-pony is apt to be
an exceedingly handsome animal, clean-built, graceful. This is
natural, when you stop to think of it, for he is descended direct from
Moorish and Arabian stock.
Certain characteristics he possesses beyond the capabilities of the
ordinary horse. The most marvelous to me of these is his
sure-footedness. Let me give you a few examples.
I once was engaged with a crew of cowboys in rounding up mustangs in
southern Arizona. We would ride slowly in through the hills until we
caught sight of the herds. Then it was a case of running them down and
heading them off, of turning the herd, milling it, of rushing it while
confused across country and into the big corrals. The surface of the
ground was composed of angular volcanic rocks about the size of your
two fists, between which the bunch-grass sprouted. An Eastern rider
would ride his horse very gingerly and at a walk, and then thank his
lucky stars if he escaped stumbles. The cowboys turned their mounts
through at a dead run. It was beautiful to see the ponies go, lifting
their feet well up and over, planting them surely and firmly, and
nevertheless making speed and attending to the game. Once, when we had
pushed the herd up the slope of a butte, it made a break to get through
a little hog-back. The only way to head it was down a series of rough
boulder ledges laid over a great sheet of volcanic rock. The man at
the hog-back put his little gray over the ledges and boulders, down the
sheet of rock,--hop, slip, slide,--and along the side hill in time to
head off the first of the mustangs. During the ten days of riding I
saw no horse fall. The animal I rode, Button by name, never even
stumbled.
In the Black Hills years ago I happened to be one of the inmates of a
small mining-camp. Each night the work-animals, after being fed, were
turned loose in the mountains. As I possessed the only cow-pony in the
outfit, he was fed in the corral, and kept up for the purpose of
rounding up the others. Every morning one of us used to ride him out
after the herd. Often it was necessary to run him at full speed along
the mountain-side, over rocks, boulders, and ledges, across ravines and
gullies. Never but once in three months did he fall.
On the trail, too, they will perform feats little short of marvelous.
Mere steepness does not bother them at all. They sit back almost on
their haunches, bunch their feet together, and slide. I have seen them
go down a hundred feet this way. In rough country they place their
feet accurately and quickly, gauge exactly the proper balance. I have
led my saddle-horse, Bullet, over country where, undoubtedly to his
intense disgust, I myself have fallen a dozen times in the course of a
morning. Bullet had no such troubles. Any of the mountain horses will
hop cheerfully up or down ledges anywhere. They will even walk a log
fifteen or twenty feet above a stream. I have seen the same trick
performed in Barnum's circus as a wonderful feat, accompanied by brass
bands and breathlessness. We accomplished it on our trip with out any
brass bands; I cannot answer for the breathlessness. As for steadiness
of nerve, they will walk serenely on the edge of precipices a man would
hate to look over, and given a palm's breadth for the soles of their
feet, they will get through. Over such a place I should a lot rather
trust Bullet than myself.
In an emergency the Western horse is not apt to lose his head. When a
pack-horse falls down, he lies still without struggle until eased of
his pack and told to get up. If he slips off an edge, he tries to
double his fore legs under him and slide. Should he find himself in a
tight place, he waits patiently for you to help him, and then proceeds
gingerly. A friend of mine rode a horse named Blue. One day, the
trail being slippery with rain, he slid and fell. My friend managed a
successful jump, but Blue tumbled about thirty feet to the bed of the
cañon. Fortunately he was not injured. After some difficulty my
friend managed to force his way through the chaparral to where Blue
stood. Then it was fine to see them. My friend would go ahead a few
feet, picking a route. When he had made his decision, he called Blue.
Blue came that far, and no farther. Several times the little horse
balanced painfully and unsteadily like a goat, all four feet on a
boulder, waiting for his signal to advance. In this manner they
regained the trail, and proceeded as though nothing had happened.
Instances could be multiplied indefinitely.
A good animal adapts himself quickly. He is capable of learning by
experience. In a country entirely new to him he soon discovers the
best method of getting about, where the feed grows, where he can find
water. He is accustomed to foraging for himself. You do not need to
show him his pasturage. If there is anything to eat anywhere in the
district he will find it. Little tufts of bunch-grass growing
concealed under the edges of the brush, he will search out. If he
cannot get grass, he knows how to rustle for the browse of small
bushes. Bullet would devour sage-brush, when he could get nothing
else; and I have even known him philosophically to fill up on dry
pine-needles. There is no nutrition in dry pine-needles, but Bullet
got a satisfyingly full belly. On the trail a well-seasoned horse will
be always on the forage, snatching here a mouthful, yonder a single
spear of grass, and all without breaking the regularity of his gait, or
delaying the pack-train behind him. At the end of the day's travel he
is that much to the good.
By long observation thus you will construct your ideal of the mountain
horse, and in your selection of your animals for an expedition you will
search always for that ideal. It is only too apt to be modified by
personal idiosyncrasies, and proverbially an ideal is difficult of
attainment; but you will, with care, come closer to its realization
than one accustomed only to the conventionality of an artificially
reared horse would believe possible.
The ideal mountain horse, when you come to pick him out, is of medium
size. He should be not smaller than fourteen hands nor larger than
fifteen. He is strongly but not clumsily built, short-coupled, with
none of the snipy speedy range of the valley animal. You will select
preferably one of wide full forehead, indicating intelligence, low in
the withers, so the saddle will not be apt to gall him. His sureness
of foot should be beyond question, and of course he must be an expert
at foraging. A horse that knows but one or two kinds of feed, and that
starves unless he can find just those kinds, is an abomination. He
must not jump when you throw all kinds of rattling and terrifying
tarpaulins across him, and he must not mind if the pack-ropes fall
about his heels. In the day's march he must follow like a dog without
the necessity of a lead-rope, nor must he stray far when turned loose
at night.
Fortunately, when removed from the reassuring environment of
civilization, horses are gregarious. They hate to be separated from the
bunch to which they are accustomed. Occasionally one of us would stop
on the trail, for some reason or another, thus dropping behind the
pack-train. Instantly the saddle-horse so detained would begin to grow
uneasy. Bullet used by all means in his power to try to induce me to
proceed. He would nibble me with his lips, paw the ground, dance in a
circle, and finally sidle up to me in the position of being mounted,
than which he could think of no stronger hint. Then when I had finally
remounted, it was hard to hold him in. He would whinny frantically,
scramble with enthusiasm up trails steep enough to draw a protest at
ordinary times, and rejoin his companions with every symptom of
gratification and delight. This gregariousness and alarm at being left
alone in a strange country tends to hold them together at night. You
are reasonably certain that in the morning, having found one, you will
come upon the rest not far away.
The personnel of our own outfit we found most interesting. Although
collected from divergent localities they soon became acquainted. In a
crowded corral they were always compact in their organization, sticking
close together, and resisting as a solid phalanx encroachments on their
feed by other and stranger horses. Their internal organization was
very amusing. A certain segregation soon took place. Some became
leaders; others by common consent were relegated to the position of
subordinates.
The order of precedence on the trail was rigidly preserved by the
pack-horses. An attempt by Buckshot to pass Dinkey, for example, the
latter always met with a bite or a kick by way of hint. If the gelding
still persisted, and tried to pass by a long detour, the mare would
rush out at him angrily, her ears back, her eyes flashing, her neck
extended. And since Buckshot was by no means inclined always to give
in meekly, we had opportunities for plenty of amusement. The two were
always skirmishing. When by a strategic short cut across the angle of a
trail Buckshot succeeded in stealing a march on Dinkey, while she was
nipping a mouthful, his triumph was beautiful to see. He never held
the place for long, however. Dinkey's was the leadership by force of
ambition and energetic character, and at the head of the pack-train she
normally marched.
Yet there were hours when utter indifference seemed to fall on the
militant spirits. They trailed peacefully and amiably in the rear
while Lily or Jenny marched with pride in the coveted advance. But the
place was theirs only by sufferance. A bite or a kick sent them back
to their own positions when the true leaders grew tired of their
vacation.
However rigid this order of precedence, the saddle-animals were
acknowledged as privileged;--and knew it. They could go where they
pleased. Furthermore theirs was the duty of correcting infractions of
the trail discipline, such as grazing on the march, or attempting
unauthorized short cuts. They appreciated this duty. Bullet always
became vastly indignant if one of the pack-horses misbehaved. He would
run at the offender angrily, hustle him to his place with savage nips
of his teeth, and drop back to his own position with a comical air of
virtue. Once in a great while it would happen that on my spurring up
from the rear of the column I would be mistaken for one of the
pack-horses attempting illegally to get ahead. Immediately Dinkey or
Buckshot would snake his head out crossly to turn me to the rear. It
was really ridiculous to see the expression of apology with which they
would take it all back, and the ostentatious, nose-elevated
indifference in Bullet's very gait as he marched haughtily by. So
rigid did all the animals hold this convention that actually in the San
Joaquin Valley Dinkey once attempted to head off a Southern Pacific
train. She ran at full speed diagonally toward it, her eyes striking
fire, her ears back, her teeth snapping in rage because the locomotive
would not keep its place behind her ladyship.
Let me make you acquainted with our outfit.
I rode, as you have gathered, an Arizona pony named Bullet. He was a
handsome fellow with a chestnut brown coat, long mane and tail, and a
beautiful pair of brown eyes. Wes always called him "Baby." He was in
fact the youngster of the party, with all the engaging qualities of
youth. I never saw a horse more willing. He wanted to do what you
wanted him to; it pleased him, and gave him a warm consciousness of
virtue which the least observant could not fail to remark. When
leading he walked industriously ahead, setting the pace; when
driving,--that is, closing up the rear,--he attended strictly to
business. Not for the most luscious bunch of grass that ever grew
would he pause even for an instant. Yet in his off hours, when I rode
irresponsibly somewhere in the middle, he was a great hand to forage.
Few choice morsels escaped him. He confided absolutely in his rider in
the matter of bad country, and would tackle anything I would put him
at. It seemed that he trusted me not to put him at anything that would
hurt him. This was an invaluable trait when an example had to be set
to the reluctance of the other horses. He was a great swimmer.
Probably the most winning quality of his nature was his extreme
friendliness. He was always wandering into camp to be petted, nibbling
me over with his lips, begging to have his forehead rubbed, thrusting
his nose under an elbow, and otherwise telling how much he thought of
us. Whoever broke him did a good job. I never rode a better-reined
horse. A mere indication of the bridle-hand turned him to right or
left, and a mere raising of the hand without the slightest pressure on
the bit stopped him short. And how well he understood cow-work! Turn
him loose after the bunch, and he would do the rest. All I had to do
was to stick to him. That in itself was no mean task, for he turned
like a flash, and was quick as a cat on his feet. At night I always
let him go foot free. He would be there in the morning, and I could
always walk directly up to him with the bridle in plain sight in my
hand. Even at a feedless camp we once made where we had shot a couple
of deer, he did not attempt to wander off in search of pasture, as
would most horses. He nosed around unsuccessfully until pitch dark,
then came into camp, and with great philosophy stood tail to the fire
until morning. I could always jump off anywhere for a shot, without
even the necessity of "tying him to the ground," by throwing the reins
over his head. He would wait for me, although he was never overfond of
firearms.
Nevertheless Bullet had his own sense of dignity. He was literally as
gentle as a kitten, but he drew a line. I shall never forget how once,
being possessed of a desire to find out whether we could swim our
outfit across a certain stretch of the Merced River, I climbed him
bareback. He bucked me off so quickly that I never even got settled on
his back. Then he gazed at me with sorrow, while, laughing
irrepressibly at this unusual assertion of independent ideas, I picked
myself out of a wild-rose bush. He did not attempt to run away from
me, but stood to be saddled, and plunged boldly into the swift water
where I told him to. Merely he thought it disrespectful in me to ride
him without his proper harness. He was the pet of the camp.
As near as I could make out, he had but one fault. He was altogether
too sensitive about his hind quarters, and would jump like a rabbit if
anything touched him there.
Wes rode a horse we called Old Slob. Wes, be it premised, was an
interesting companion. He had done everything,--seal-hunting,
abalone-gathering, boar-hunting, all kinds of shooting, cow-punching in
the rough Coast Ranges, and all other queer and outlandish and
picturesque vocations by which a man can make a living. He weighed two
hundred and twelve pounds and was the best game shot with a rifle I
ever saw.
As you may imagine, Old Slob was a stocky individual. He was built
from the ground up. His disposition was quiet, slow, honest. Above
all, he gave the impression of vast, very vast experience. Never did he
hurry his mental processes, although he was quick enough in his
movements if need arose. He quite declined to worry about anything.
Consequently, in spite of the fact that he carried by far the heaviest
man in the company, he stayed always fat and in good condition. There
was something almost pathetic in Old Slob's willingness to go on
working, even when more work seemed like an imposition. You could not
fail to fall in love with his mild inquiring gentle eyes, and his utter
trust in the goodness of human nature. His only fault was an excess of
caution. Old Slob was very very experienced. He knew all about
trails, and he declined to be hurried over what he considered a bad
place. Wes used sometimes to disagree with him as to what constituted
a bad place. "Some day you're going to take a tumble, you old fool,"
Wes used to address him, "if you go on fiddling down steep rocks with
your little old monkey work. Why don't you step out?" Only Old Slob
never did take a tumble. He was willing to do anything for you, even
to the assuming of a pack. This is considered by a saddle-animal
distinctly as a come-down.
The Tenderfoot, by the irony of fate, drew a tenderfoot horse. Tunemah
was a big fool gray that was constitutionally rattle-brained. He meant
well enough, but he didn't know anything. When he came to a bad place
in the trail, he took one good look--and rushed it. Constantly we
expected him to come to grief. It wore on the Tenderfoot's nerves.
Tunemah was always trying to wander off the trail, trying fool routes
of his own invention. If he were sent ahead to set the pace, he lagged
and loitered and constantly looked back, worried lest he get too far in
advance and so lose the bunch. If put at the rear, he fretted against
the bit, trying to push on at a senseless speed. In spite of his
extreme anxiety to stay with the train, he would once in a blue moon
get a strange idea of wandering off solitary through the mountains,
passing good feed, good water, good shelter. We would find him, after
a greater or less period of difficult tracking, perched in a silly
fashion on some elevation. Heaven knows what his idea was: it certainly
was neither search for feed, escape, return whence he came, nor desire
for exercise. When we came up with him, he would gaze mildly at us
from a foolish vacant eye and follow us peaceably back to camp. Like
most weak and silly people, he had occasional stubborn fits when you
could beat him to a pulp without persuading him. He was one of the
type already mentioned that knows but two or three kinds of feed. As
time went on he became thinner and thinner. The other horses
prospered, but Tunemah failed. He actually did not know enough to take
care of himself; and could not learn. Finally, when about two months
out, we traded him at a cow-camp for a little buckskin called Monache.
So much for the saddle-horses. The pack-animals were four.
A study of Dinkey's character and an experience of her characteristics
always left me with mingled feelings. At times I was inclined to think
her perfection: at other times thirty cents would have been esteemed by
me as a liberal offer for her. To enumerate her good points: she was
an excellent weight-carrier; took good care of her pack that it never
scraped nor bumped; knew all about trails, the possibilities of short
cuts, the best way of easing herself downhill; kept fat and healthy in
districts where grew next to no feed at all; was past-mistress in the
picking of routes through a trailless country. Her endurance was
marvelous; her intelligence equally so. In fact too great intelligence
perhaps accounted for most of her defects. She thought too much for
herself; she made up opinions about people; she speculated on just how
far each member of the party, man or beast, would stand imposition, and
tried conclusions with each to test the accuracy of her speculations;
she obstinately insisted on her own way in going up and down hill,--a
way well enough for Dinkey, perhaps, but hazardous to the other less
skillful animals who naturally would follow her lead. If she did
condescend to do things according to your ideas, it was with a mental
reservation. You caught her sardonic eye fixed on you contemptuously.
You felt at once that she knew another method, a much better method,
with which yours compared most unfavorably. "I'd like to kick you in
the stomach," Wes used to say; "you know too much for a horse!"
If one of the horses bucked under the pack, Dinkey deliberately tried
to stampede the others--and generally succeeded. She invariably led
them off whenever she could escape her picket-rope. In case of trouble
of any sort, instead of standing still sensibly, she pretended to be
subject to wild-eyed panics. It was all pretense, for when you DID
yield to temptation and light into her with the toe of your boot, she
subsided into common sense. The spirit of malevolent mischief was hers.
Her performances when she was being packed were ridiculously
histrionic. As soon as the saddle was cinched, she spread her legs
apart, bracing them firmly as though about to receive the weight of an
iron safe. Then as each article of the pack was thrown across her
back, she flinched and uttered the most heart-rending groans. We used
sometimes to amuse ourselves by adding merely an empty sack, or other
article quite without weight. The groans and tremblings of the braced
legs were quite as pitiful as though we had piled on a sack of flour.
Dinkey, I had forgotten to state, was a white horse, and belonged to
Wes.
Jenny also was white and belonged to Wes. Her chief characteristic was
her devotion to Dinkey. She worshiped Dinkey, and seconded her
enthusiastically. Without near the originality of Dinkey, she was yet a
very good and sure pack-horse. The deceiving part about Jenny was her
eye. It was baleful with the spirit of evil,--snaky and black, and
with green sideways gleams in it. Catching the flash of it, you would
forever after avoid getting in range of her heels or teeth. But it was
all a delusion. Jenny's disposition was mild and harmless.
The third member of the pack-outfit we bought at an auction sale in
rather a peculiar manner. About sixty head of Arizona horses of the C.
A. Bar outfit were being sold. Toward the close of the afternoon they
brought out a well-built stocky buckskin of first-rate appearance
except that his left flank was ornamented with five different brands.
The auctioneer called attention to him.
"Here is a first-rate all-round horse," said he. "He is sound; will
ride, work, or pack; perfectly broken, mild, and gentle. He would make
a first-rate family horse, for he has a kind disposition."
The official rider put a saddle on him to give him a demonstrating turn
around the track. Then that mild, gentle, perfectly broken family
horse of kind disposition gave about as pretty an exhibition of
barbed-wire bucking as you would want to see. Even the auctioneer had
to join in the wild shriek of delight that went up from the crowd. He
could not get a bid, and I bought the animal in later very cheaply.
As I had suspected, the trouble turned out to be merely exuberance or
nervousness before a crowd. He bucked once with me under the saddle;
and twice subsequently under a pack,--that was all. Buckshot was the
best pack-horse we had. Bar an occasional saunter into the brush when
he got tired of the trail, we had no fault to find with him. He
carried a heavy pack, was as sure-footed as Bullet, as sagacious on the
trail as Dinkey, and he always attended strictly to his own business.
Moreover he knew that business thoroughly, knew what should be expected
of him, accomplished it well and quietly. His disposition was
dignified but lovable. As long as you treated him well, he was as
gentle as you could ask. But once let Buckshot get it into his head
that he was being imposed on, or once let him see that your temper had
betrayed you into striking him when he thought he did not deserve it,
and he cut loose vigorously and emphatically with his heels. He
declined to be abused.
There remains but Lily. I don't know just how to do justice to
Lily--the "Lily maid." We named her that because she looked it. Her
color was a pure white, her eye was virginal and silly, her long bang
strayed in wanton carelessness across her face and eyes, her expression
was foolish, and her legs were long and rangy. She had the general
appearance of an overgrown school-girl too big for short dresses and
too young for long gowns;--a school-girl named Flossie, or Mamie, or
Lily. So we named her that.
At first hers was the attitude of the timid and shrinking tenderfoot.
She stood in awe of her companions; she appreciated her lack of
experience. Humbly she took the rear; slavishly she copied the other
horses; closely she clung to camp. Then in a few weeks, like most
tenderfeet, she came to think that her short experience had taught her
everything there was to know. She put on airs. She became too cocky
and conceited for words.
Everything she did was exaggerated, overdone. She assumed her pack with
an air that plainly said, "Just see what a good horse am I!" She
started out three seconds before the others in a manner intended to
shame their procrastinating ways. Invariably she was the last to rest,
and the first to start on again. She climbed over-vigorously, with the
manner of conscious rectitude. "Acts like she was trying to get her
wages raised," said Wes.
In this manner she wore herself down. If permitted she would have
climbed until winded, and then would probably have fallen off somewhere
for lack of strength. Where the other horses watched the movements of
those ahead, in order that when a halt for rest was called they might
stop at an easy place on the trail, Lily would climb on until jammed
against the animal immediately preceding her. Thus often she found
herself forced to cling desperately to extremely bad footing until the
others were ready to proceed. Altogether she was a precious nuisance,
that acted busily but without thinking.
Two virtues she did possess. She was a glutton for work; and she could
fall far and hard without injuring herself. This was lucky, for she
was always falling. Several times we went down to her fully expecting
to find her dead or so crippled that she would have to be shot. The
loss of a little skin was her only injury. She got to be quite
philosophic about it. On losing her balance she would tumble
peaceably, and then would lie back with an air of luxury, her eyes
closed, while we worked to free her. When we had loosened the pack,
Wes would twist her tail. Thereupon she would open one eye inquiringly
as though to say, "Hullo! Done already?" Then leisurely she would
arise and shake herself.
IV
ON HOW TO GO ABOUT IT
One truth you must learn to accept, believe as a tenet of your faith,
and act upon always. It is that your entire welfare depends on the
condition of your horses. They must, as a consequence, receive always
your first consideration. As long as they have rest and food, you are
sure of getting along; as soon as they fail, you are reduced to
difficulties. So absolute is this truth that it has passed into an
idiom. When a Westerner wants to tell you that he lacks a thing, he
informs you he is "afoot" for it. "Give me a fill for my pipe," he
begs; "I'm plumb afoot for tobacco."