Nor is the forest altogether lonely. Occasionally a pack-train is
met, or a party of pedestrians, tramping with blankets, provisions
and frying-pans from the settlements or railroad camps west of the
mountains to those in the mountain valleys, and sleeping _al fresco_
wherever night overtakes them. Rough fellows these, but good-humored,
and in no way dangerous. Indeed, there is no danger in any of the
country I traversed on my northwestern pilgrimage, to a traveler who
minds his own business and keeps out of drinking dens. Almost everybody
I met had a big pistol strapped to him; but I carried no weapon of any
kind, and never once felt the need of one.
In Montana every traveler carries his bed, whether he depends upon
hoofs or wheels for locomotion, or on his own legs. Even the tramp who
foots it over the prairies and through the mountains, pretending to
look for work, but really on a summer pleasure tour, subsisting upon
the country, has a pair of dirty blankets or an old quilt slung by a
rope across his shoulders. The sleeping equipment of a traveler who can
afford to pay some attention to comfort, consists of a buffalo robe and
two pairs of blankets. With these, and perhaps a rubber poncho, he is
prepared to stop wherever night overtakes him, fortunate if he has a
roof over his head, and a pine floor to spread his buffalo upon, but
ready to camp out under the stars. Along the stage roads one is rarely
more than twenty miles from a house of some kind, but no one expects
beds. The ranchman does not ask his guests if they would like to go to
bed; he says: "Well, gents, are you ready to spread your blankets?"