The Young Alaskans in the Rockies, Emerson Hough [nonfiction book recommendations txt] 📗

to-morrow, we might have to make quite a wait. But don’t worry—just turn in before the mosquitoes get you.”

III HITTING THE TRAIL

“

Look on the tent, fellows!” exclaimed Jesse, the first thing next morning, just as dawn was beginning to break. “It’s almost solid mosquitoes!”

“About a million,” said John, sitting up in his blankets. “All of them with cold feet, waiting for the sun to come up.”

They were looking at the top of the tent, where in the folds of the netting a great cloud of mosquitoes had gathered in the effort to get through the cheese-cloth.

“Did any bite you in the night, Jesse?” asked Rob, from his bed.

“No, but I could hear them sing a good deal until I went to sleep.”

“Well, come ahead; let’s roll out,” said Rob. “All those mosquitoes will come to life when it gets warm.”

They kicked off the blankets, slipped into their clothing, and soon were out in the cool morning air. The spring night had been a dewy one, and all the shrubs and grasses were very wet.

“Hello there, young mans!” they heard a voice exclaim, and saw Moise’s head thrust out from beneath his shelter. “You’ll got up pretty early, no?”

“Well, we’ve got to be moving early,” said Rob. “Anyway, we beat Uncle Dick up this morning.”

“That’s right,” called out the voice of Uncle Dick, from his tent, “but the quicker we get started the quicker we’ll get over Wolf Creek. Now you boys go over there where you hear the gray mare’s bell and see if you can round up all the pack-train. You’ll learn before long that half the campaign of a pack-train trip is hunting horses in the morning. But they’ll stick close where the pea-vine is thick as it is here.”

Our three young Alaskans were used to wet grass in the morning, and after the first plunge, which wet them to the skin, they did not mind the dew-covered herbage. Soon, shouting and running, they were rounding up the hobbled pack-horses, which, with the usual difficulty, they finally succeeded in driving up close to the camp, where by this time Moise had his fire going. The wilder of the horses they tied to trees near by, but some of the older ones stood unhitched with heads drooping in the chill morning air, as though unhappy, but resigned to their fate. Moise, as usual, rewarded old gray Betsy, the bell-mare, with a lump of sugar as she passed by. The others, with the strange instinct of pack-horses to follow a leader, grouped themselves near to the old white mare. The boys put the blankets over the backs of some of the horses while waiting for Moise to finish his breakfast.

“Grub pile!” sung out Moise, after a while; and soon, in the damp morning air, with white mist hanging over the low land about them, they were eating their morning meal.

“Tea for breakfast,” said Rob, smiling. “Well, I suppose it’s all right up here, but in our country we mostly have coffee.”

“We’d have it here if we could get it good,” said Uncle Dick; “but, you see, we’re a good ways from home, and coffee doesn’t keep as well as tea on the trail, besides being much bulkier.”

“Now,” said Jesse, his mouth full of bacon, “as soon as I get done breakfast I’m going to try that diamond hitch all over again. Moise says the one I did yesterday slipped on him.”

“That’s happened to many a good packer,” said Uncle Dick. “Sometimes a pack gets snagged in the bush, or all sorts of other things may happen to it. They tell me that a mule will look at two trees and not try to go between them if it sees the pack won’t squeeze through, but with some of these northern cayuses I think they try to see how many times they can crowd through between trees and scrape off their packs. But finish your breakfast, young men, and eat plenty, because we’re going to have a long trip to-day.”

After they had finished breakfast Rob led up the big roan Billy, which always went next to the gray lead-mare with the mare, and on which they usually packed their blankets and small tent. Billy stood quite calmly, but with his head and ears depressed, as though feeling very sad.

“Ready with those blanket packs now, boys,” called Uncle Dick; and soon they had them alongside, each bed rolled in its canvas covering.

“Now up with the saddle, Rob.”

Rob threw the sawbuck pack-saddle on top of the padded blanket.

“Cinch tight—that’s half in packing, to have the saddle firm.”

And, following Uncle Dick’s instruction, Rob made the cinch as tight as he could.

“Now get on the off side,” said Uncle Dick; “and Jesse, you watch us, how we work. You can all help if you want to.

“Are your sling-ropes all ready, Rob?” he inquired next. “Of course, you see, the sling-ropes simply act like baskets on each side the pack-saddle. They only support, and don’t make fast.

“Now then, up with your side packs into your sling-ropes—so—that’s all right. Then the top pack on over the saddle, fitting well between the two side packs. Shake them all down so to fit tight together. Now throw the canvas cover over the top, and see that nothing is where it will get busted when you cinch up.

“There, now, that’s all right as far as it goes. Next we come to the one part of packing more important than anything else. It is the hitch which holds everything together. We’re going to throw the diamond hitch now. Without that, folks couldn’t have settled this western country or built railroads over the Rockies, maybe.”

“Who first invented the diamond hitch, Uncle Dick?” queried Rob.

“Nobody knows, but it’s Spanish, that’s sure, and not Canadian. It got up this far north on both sides of the Rockies, brought by miners and packers of all colors and nationalities. Originally it came from Mexico, and it came there from Spain, and perhaps it came to Spain from northern Africa—who knows?—along with the cow-horse itself.”

“But they don’t always throw it the same way.”

“No, there are several different throws of the diamond hitch, all of them good. The one I’ll show you was showed me by an old cargador in California. Now watch carefully how it is done, for it is easier to see it than to tell about it.

“Now, here we have the long rope which makes the hitch. Some packers throw the loose end out over the back of the horse. We’ll just let it point the other way—leave it tied to the horse’s neck if you want.

“At the other end of the rope is our cinch-band, and the cinch-hook at the other end of the band or girth. It’s made out of wood or horn sometimes. Now, Rob, I am going to pass the belly-band under the horse. Catch the hook when it comes through. Are you all right now?”

“Yes, I’ve got it,” answered Rob.

“Very well—you’re the off-side packer, for it takes two to pack a horse. Now watch closely, all of you, at what comes next. You see Rob has the hook in his hand and I have the rest of the rope in my hand. Now I double the rope and throw it over the top of the pack to Rob, and he hooks the bight of the doubled rope over the cinch-hook. Got that all right now?”

“Yes, sir,” said Rob, “I’ve got it hooked. That’s easy so far.”

“Well, now it isn’t going to be quite so easy. I’ve known lots of intelligent men who never could get this thing straight in their heads at all. Now watch how I pull this doubled rope toward me across the top of the pack. The long end, on the left, is free, and I tighten the right-hand leg of the rope. Now, you see I pass the left-hand leg under the right-hand in another long loop, or bight—this way, see. Now I can enlarge that loop by pulling some of the free end of the rope through, can’t I? I leave it all loose, because we don’t pull things up until we get the whole hitch thrown and set.

“Now I pull my big loose loop out toward the rear of the pack on my side. And I just twist the loop over, side for side, until you see it bind or twist in the middle on top the pack. That’s the important thing. Now I run the right-hand side of my loop on the right-hand lower corner of my side pack. Then I carry it under the bottom of the side pack and around the lower corner in front. I just tighten it up a little, as I do this.

“Now, Rob, it’s your turn. You take hold of the free end of the rope which I have tossed over to you. It runs from the twist on top of the pack to your left-hand lower corner, and under your side pack and up to me around your right-hand lower corner.

“Now you might say that your diamond is laid, and that you are ready to cinch up. The ropes will bind first where they cross on top, and tighten all the way back to the end of the cinch-hook on the off side. When everything is made fast, the last end of the rope—which, by the way, we will have to untie from our horse’s neck—comes over, finishes the diamond hitch, and is made fast at my cinch-ring on the near side. We begin at the cinch-hook and finish at the cinch-ring, on the other side.

“Now then, we begin to cinch. I begin when you call ‘cinch!’ That means that you have put your foot into old Billy and pulled the first leg of the rope up right in the cinch-hook. I gather up your slack and I tighten it all the way around the corners of my pack and back over the top. It is now up to you to cinch again, with your foot in the pack, as I did here just a little. That tightens all the slack clear to your corners. Now when your rope comes back to me for the last tightening I haul it hard as I can and tie off at my cinch-ring. I use a knot which I can jerk loose easily if I want to tighten or loosen the pack on the trail. So, there you are, all set.” And Uncle Dick slapped old Billy on the hip as he stood groaning in great pretense of suffering, at which old Billy walked forward a few steps and stood still, awaiting the next victim in the train.

“That’s tight as a drum,” said Jesse, pushing at the loaded packs.

“Humph, you mean that old Billy’s tight as a drum,” said Uncle Dick. “An old pack-horse will groan as though you were killing him, and will blow up like a horned toad. Then maybe a half-hour later on the trail all his ropes will be as loose as if he had lost a year’s growth. We’ll have to go over all these packs just before we start down that bank, or we may lose some of them. That’s why we fastened the last end of the hitch with a loop easy to pull out.

“A good pack-master,” said Uncle Dick, “is worth as much as a colonel in an army. He never has sore-backed horses, because he makes up his packs well and keeps them tight. A shifting, wabbling pack is bad for the horse. Why, you can pack almost anything on a horse—they even took pianos on slings between four pack-horses in some of the mountain mining-camps in Montana. And what do you suppose was