The Mountains
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Stewart Edward White >> The Mountains
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The saddle-horses are attended to first. Thus they
are available for business in case some of the others
should make trouble. You will see that your saddle-
blankets are perfectly smooth, and so laid that the
edges are to the front where they are least likely to
roll under or wrinkle. After the saddle is in place,
lift it slightly and loosen the blanket along the back
bone so it will not draw down tight under the weight
of the rider. Next hang your rifle-scabbard under
your left leg. It should be slanted along the horse's
side at such an angle that neither will the muzzle
interfere with the animal's hind leg, nor the butt with
your bridle-hand. This angle must be determined by
experiment. The loop in front should be attached to
the scabbard, so it can be hung over the horn; that
behind to the saddle, so the muzzle can be thrust
through it. When you come to try this method, you
will appreciate its handiness. Besides the rifle, you
will carry also your rope, camera, and a sweater or
waistcoat for changes in temperature. In your saddle
bags are pipe and tobacco, perhaps a chunk of bread,
your note-book, and the map--if there is any. Thus
your saddle-horse is outfitted. Do not forget your
collapsible rubber cup. About your waist you will wear
your cartridge-belt with six-shooter and sheath-knife.
I use a forty-five caliber belt. By threading a buck
skin thong in and out through some of the cartridge
loops, their size is sufficiently reduced to hold also the
30-40 rifle cartridges. Thus I carry ammunition for
both revolver and rifle in the one belt. The belt
should not be buckled tight about your waist, but
should hang well down on the hip. This is for two
reasons. In the first place, it does not drag so heavily
at your anatomy, and falls naturally into position when
you are mounted. In the second place, you can jerk
your gun out more easily from a loose-hanging holster.
Let your knife-sheath be so deep as almost to
cover the handle, and the knife of the very best steel
procurable. I like a thin blade. If you are a student
of animal anatomy, you can skin and quarter a deer
with nothing heavier than a pocket-knife.
When you come to saddle the pack-horses, you
must exercise even greater care in getting the saddle-
blankets smooth and the saddle in place. There is
some give and take to a rider; but a pack carries
"dead," and gives the poor animal the full handicap
of its weight at all times. A rider dismounts in bad
or steep places; a pack stays on until the morning's
journey is ended. See to it, then, that it is on right.
Each horse should have assigned him a definite
and, as nearly as possible, unvarying pack. Thus you
will not have to search everywhere for the things
you need.
For example, in our own case, Lily was known as
the cook-horse. She carried all the kitchen utensils,
the fire-irons, the axe, and matches. In addition her
alforjas contained a number of little bags in which
were small quantities for immediate use of all the
different sorts of provisions we had with us. When
we made camp we unpacked her near the best place
for a fire, and everything was ready for the cook.
Jenny was a sort of supply store, for she transported
the main stock of the provisions of which Lily's little
bags contained samples. Dinkey helped out Jenny,
and in addition--since she took such good care
of her pack--was intrusted with the fishing-rods,
the shot-gun, the medicine-bag, small miscellaneous
duffle, and whatever deer or bear meat we happened
to have. Buckshot's pack consisted of things not
often used, such as all the ammunition, the horse-
shoeing outfit, repair-kit, and the like. It was rarely
disturbed at all.
These various things were all stowed away in the
kyacks or alforjas which hung on either side. They
had to be very accurately balanced. The least difference
in weight caused one side to sag, and that in
turn chafed the saddle-tree against the animal's
withers.
So far, so good. Next comes the affair of the top
packs. Lay your duffle-bags across the middle of the
saddle. Spread the blankets and quilts as evenly as
possible. Cover all with the canvas tarpaulin suitably
folded. Everything is now ready for the pack-rope.
The first thing anybody asks you when it is
discovered that you know a little something of pack-
trains is, "Do you throw the Diamond Hitch?"
Now the Diamond is a pretty hitch and a firm one,
but it is by no means the fetish some people make
of it. They would have you believe that it represents
the height of the packer's art; and once having
mastered it, they use it religiously for every weight,
shape, and size of pack. The truth of the matter is
that the style of hitch should be varied according to
the use to which it is to be put.
The Diamond is good because it holds firmly, is
a great flattener, and is especially adapted to the
securing of square boxes. It is celebrated because it
is pretty and rather difficult to learn. Also it possesses
the advantage for single-handed packing that it can
be thrown slack throughout and then tightened, and
that the last pull tightens the whole hitch. However,
for ordinary purposes, with a quiet horse and a
comparatively soft pack, the common Square Hitch holds
well enough and is quickly made. For a load of
small articles and heavy alforjas there is nothing like
the Lone Packer. It too is a bit hard to learn. Chiefly
is it valuable because the last pulls draw the alforjas
away from the horse's sides, thus preventing their
chafing him. Of the many hitches that remain, you
need learn, to complete your list for all practical
purposes, only the Bucking Hitch. It is complicated,
and takes time and patience to throw, but it is
warranted to hold your deck-load through the most
violent storms bronco ingenuity can stir up.
These four will be enough. Learn to throw them,
and take pains always to throw them good and tight.
A loose pack is the best expedient the enemy of your
soul could possibly devise. It always turns or comes
to pieces on the edge of things; and then you will
spend the rest of the morning trailing a wildly buck-
ing horse by the burst and scattered articles of camp
duffle. It is furthermore your exhilarating task, after
you have caught him, to take stock, and spend most
of the afternoon looking for what your first search
passed by. Wes and I once hunted two hours for
as large an object as a Dutch oven. After which you
can repack. This time you will snug things down.
You should have done so in the beginning.
Next, the lead-ropes are made fast to the top of
the packs. There is here to be learned a certain knot.
In case of trouble you can reach from your saddle
and jerk the whole thing free by a single pull on a
loose end.
All is now ready. You take a last look around to
see that nothing has been left. One of the horsemen
starts on ahead. The pack-horses swing in behind.
We soon accustomed ours to recognize the whistling
of "Boots and Saddles" as a signal for the advance.
Another horseman brings up the rear. The day's
journey has begun.
To one used to pleasure-riding the affair seems
almost too deliberate. The leader plods steadily,
stopping from time to time to rest on the steep slopes.
The others string out in a leisurely procession. It
does no good to hurry. The horses will of their own
accord stay in sight of one another, and constant
nagging to keep the rear closed up only worries them
without accomplishing any valuable result. In going
uphill especially, let the train take its time. Each
animal is likely to have his own ideas about when and
where to rest. If he does, respect them. See to it
merely that there is no prolonged yielding to the
temptation of meadow feed, and no careless or malicious
straying off the trail. A minute's difference in
the time of arrival does not count. Remember that
the horses are doing hard and continuous work on a
grass diet.
The day's distance will not seem to amount to
much in actual miles, especially if, like most
Californians, you are accustomed on a fresh horse to make
an occasional sixty or seventy between suns; but
it ought to suffice. There is a lot to be seen and
enjoyed in a mountain mile. Through the high country
two miles an hour is a fair average rate of speed,
so you can readily calculate that fifteen make a pretty
long day. You will be afoot a good share of the time.
If you were out from home for only a few hours' jaunt,
undoubtedly you would ride your horse over places where
in an extended trip you will prefer to lead him. It is
always a question of saving your animals.
About ten o'clock you must begin to figure on
water. No horse will drink in the cool of the morning,
and so, when the sun gets well up, he will be
thirsty. Arrange it.
As to the method of travel, you can either stop at
noon or push straight on through. We usually arose
about half past four; got under way by seven; and
then rode continuously until ready to make the next
camp. In the high country this meant until two or
three in the afternoon, by which time both we and the
horses were pretty hungry. But when we did make
camp, the horses had until the following morning to
get rested and to graze, while we had all the remainder
of the afternoon to fish, hunt, or loaf. Sometimes,
however, it was more expedient to make a lunch-camp
at noon. Then we allowed an hour for grazing, and
about half an hour to pack and unpack. It meant
steady work for ourselves. To unpack, turn out the
horses, cook, wash dishes, saddle up seven animals,
and repack, kept us very busy. There remained not
much leisure to enjoy the scenery. It freshened the
horses, however, which was the main point. I should
say the first method was the better for ordinary
journeys; and the latter for those times when, to reach
good feed, a forced march becomes necessary.
On reaching the night's stopping-place, the cook
for the day unpacks the cook-horse and at once sets
about the preparation of dinner. The other two attend
to the animals. And no matter how tired you
are, or how hungry you may be, you must take time
to bathe their backs with cold water; to stake the
picket-animal where it will at once get good feed and
not tangle its rope in bushes, roots, or stumps; to
hobble the others; and to bell those inclined to
wander. After this is done, it is well, for the peace and
well-being of the party, to take food.
A smoke establishes you in the final and normal
attitude of good humor. Each man spreads his tarpaulin
where he has claimed his bed. Said claim is
indicated by his hat thrown down where he wishes
to sleep. It is a mark of pre-emption which every one
is bound to respect. Lay out your saddle-blankets,
cover them with your quilt, place the sleeping-
blanket on top, and fold over the tarpaulin to cover
the whole. At the head deposit your duffle-bag. Thus
are you assured of a pleasant night.
About dusk you straggle in with trout or game.
The camp-keeper lays aside his mending or his
repairing or his note-book, and stirs up the cooking-
fire. The smell of broiling and frying and boiling
arises in the air. By the dancing flame of the campfire
you eat your third dinner for the day--in the
mountains all meals are dinners, and formidable ones
at that. The curtain of blackness draws down close.
Through it shine stars, loom mountains cold and
mist-like in the moon. You tell stories. You smoke
pipes. After a time the pleasant chill creeps down
from the eternal snows. Some one throws another
handful of pine-cones on the fire. Sleepily you prepare
for bed. The pine-cones flare up, throwing their
light in your eyes. You turn over and wrap the soft
woolen blanket close about your chin. You wink
drowsily and at once you are asleep. Along late in
the night you awaken to find your nose as cold as a
dog's. You open one eye. A few coals mark where
the fire has been. The mist mountains have drawn
nearer, they seem to bend over you in silent
contemplation. The moon is sailing high in the heavens.
With a sigh you draw the canvas tarpaulin over
your head. Instantly it is morning.
V
THE COAST RANGES
At last, on the day appointed, we, with five
horses, climbed the Cold Spring Trail to the
ridge; and then, instead of turning to the left, we
plunged down the zigzag lacets of the other side.
That night we camped at Mono Canon, feeling ourselves
strangely an integral part of the relief map we
had looked upon so many times that almost we had
come to consider its features as in miniature, not
capacious for the accommodation of life-sized men.
Here we remained a day while we rode the hills in
search of Dinkey and Jenny, there pastured.
We found Jenny peaceful and inclined to be corralled.
But Dinkey, followed by a slavishly adoring
brindle mule, declined to be rounded up. We chased
her up hill and down; along creek-beds and through
the spiky chaparral. Always she dodged craftily,
warily, with forethought. Always the brindled mule,
wrapt in admiration at his companion's cleverness,
crashed along after. Finally we teased her into a
narrow canon. Wes and the Tenderfoot closed the
upper end. I attempted to slip by to the lower, but
was discovered. Dinkey tore a frantic mile down the
side hill. Bullet, his nostrils wide, his ears back, raced
parallel in the boulder-strewn stream-bed, wonderful
in his avoidance of bad footing, precious in his
selection of good, interested in the game, indignant at the
wayward Dinkey, profoundly contemptuous of the
besotted mule. At a bend in the canon interposed
a steep bank. Up this we scrambled, dirt and stones
flying. I had just time to bend low along the saddle
when, with the ripping and tearing and scratching of
thorns, we burst blindly through a thicket. In the
open space on the farther side Bullet stopped, panting
but triumphant. Dinkey, surrounded at last, turned
back toward camp with an air of utmost indifference.
The mule dropped his long ears and followed.
At camp we corralled Dinkey, but left her friend
to shift for himself. Then was lifted up his voice in
mulish lamentations until, cursing, we had to ride out
bareback and drive him far into the hills and there
stone him into distant fear. Even as we departed up
the trail the following day the voice of his sorrow,
diminishing like the echo of grief, appealed uselessly
to Dinkey's sympathy. For Dinkey, once captured,
seemed to have shrugged her shoulders and accepted
inevitable toil with a real though cynical philosophy.
The trail rose gradually by imperceptible gradations
and occasional climbs. We journeyed in the
great canons. High chaparral flanked the trail,
occasional wide gray stretches of "old man" filled the air
with its pungent odor and with the calls of its quail.
The crannies of the rocks, the stretches of wide loose
shale, the crumbling bottom earth offered to the
eye the dessicated beauties of creamy yucca, of yerba
buena, of the gaudy red paint-brushes, the Spanish
bayonet; and to the nostrils the hot dry perfumes of
the semi-arid lands. The air was tepid; the sun hot.
A sing-song of bees and locusts and strange insects
lulled the mind. The ponies plodded on cheerfully.
We expanded and basked and slung our legs over
the pommels of our saddles and were glad we had come.
At no time did we seem to be climbing mountains.
Rather we wound in and out, round and about,
through a labyrinth of valleys and canons and
ravines, farther and farther into a mysterious shut-in
country that seemed to have no end. Once in a while,
to be sure, we zigzagged up a trifling ascent; but it
was nothing. And then at a certain point the Tenderfoot
happened to look back.
"Well!" he gasped; "will you look at that!"
We turned. Through a long straight aisle which
chance had placed just there, we saw far in the distance
a sheer slate-colored wall; and beyond, still
farther in the distance, overtopping the slate-colored
wall by a narrow strip, another wall of light azure blue.
"It's our mountains," said Wes, "and that blue
ridge is the channel islands. We've got up higher
than our range."
We looked about us, and tried to realize that we
were actually more than halfway up the formidable
ridge we had so often speculated on from the Cold
Spring Trail. But it was impossible. In a few
moments, however, our broad easy canon narrowed.
Huge crags and sheer masses of rock hemmed us
in. The chaparral and yucca and yerba buena gave
place to pine-trees and mountain oaks, with little
close clumps of cottonwoods in the stream bottom.
The brook narrowed and leaped, and the white of
alkali faded from its banks. We began to climb
in good earnest, pausing often for breath. The view
opened. We looked back on whence we had come,
and saw again, from the reverse, the forty miles of
ranges and valleys we had viewed from the Ridge Trail.
At this point we stopped to shoot a rattlesnake.
Dinkey and Jenny took the opportunity to push
ahead. From time to time we would catch sight
of them traveling earnestly on, following the trail
accurately, stopping at stated intervals to rest, doing
their work, conducting themselves as decorously as
though drivers had stood over them with blacksnake
whips. We tried a little to catch up.
"Never mind," said Wes, "they've been over this
trail before. They'll stop when they get to where
we're going to camp."
We halted a moment on the ridge to look back
over the lesser mountains and the distant ridge,
beyond which the islands now showed plainly. Then
we dropped down behind the divide into a cup valley
containing a little meadow with running water on
two sides of it and big pines above. The meadow
was brown, to be sure, as all typical California is at
this time of year. But the brown of California and
the brown of the East are two different things. Here
is no snow or rain to mat down the grass, to suck
out of it the vital principles. It grows ripe and sweet
and soft, rich with the life that has not drained away,
covering the hills and valleys with the effect of beaver
fur, so that it seems the great round-backed hills must
have in a strange manner the yielding flesh-elasticity
of living creatures. The brown of California is the
brown of ripeness; not of decay.
Our little meadow was beautifully named Madulce,[1]
and was just below the highest point of this
section of the Coast Range. The air drank fresh with
the cool of elevation. We went out to shoot supper;
and so found ourselves on a little knoll fronting the
brown-hazed east. As we stood there, enjoying the
breeze after our climb, a great wave of hot air swept
by us, filling our lungs with heat, scorching our faces
as the breath of a furnace. Thus was brought to our
minds what, in the excitement of a new country, we
had forgotten,--that we were at last on the eastern slope,
and that before us waited the Inferno of the desert.
[1] In all Spanish names the final e should be pronounced.
That evening we lay in the sweet ripe grasses of
Madulce, and talked of it. Wes had been across it
once before and did not possess much optimism with
which to comfort us.
"It's hot, just plain hot," said he, "and that's all
there is about it. And there's mighty little water,
and what there is is sickish and a long ways apart.
And the sun is strong enough to roast potatoes in."
"Why not travel at night?" we asked.
"No place to sleep under daytimes," explained
Wes. "It's better to keep traveling and then get
a chance for a little sleep in the cool of the night."
We saw the reasonableness of that.
"Of course we'll start early, and take a long
nooning, and travel late. We won't get such a lot of
sleep."
"How long is it going to take us?"
Wes calculated.
"About eight days," he said soberly.
The next morning we descended from Madulce
abruptly by a dirt trail, almost perpendicular until we
slid into a canon of sage-brush and quail, of mescale
cactus and the fierce dry heat of sun-baked shale.
"Is it any hotter than this on the desert?" we inquired.
Wes looked on us with pity.
"This is plumb arctic," said he.
Near noon we came to a little cattle ranch situated
in a flat surrounded by red dikes and buttes
after the manner of Arizona. Here we unpacked,
early as it was, for through the dry countries one has
to apportion his day's journeys by the water to be
had. If we went farther to-day, then to-morrow night
would find us in a dry camp.
The horses scampered down the flat to search out
alfilaria. We roosted under a slanting shed,--where
were stock saddles, silver-mounted bits and spurs,
rawhide riatas, branding-irons, and all the lumber of
the cattle business,--and hung out our tongues and
gasped for breath and earnestly desired the sun to
go down or a breeze to come up. The breeze shortly
did so. It was a hot breeze, and availed merely to
cover us with dust, to swirl the stable-yard into our
faces. Great swarms of flies buzzed and lit and stung.
Wes, disgusted, went over to where a solitary cow-
puncher was engaged in shoeing a horse. Shortly
we saw Wes pressed into service to hold the horse's
hoof. He raised a pathetic face to us, the big round
drops chasing each other down it as fast as rain. We
grinned and felt better.
The fierce perpendicular rays of the sun beat down.
The air under the shed grew stuffier and more
oppressive, but it was the only patch of shade in all that
pink and red furnace of a little valley. The Tenderfoot
discovered a pair of horse-clippers, and, becoming
slightly foolish with the heat, insisted on our
barbering his head. We told him it was cooler with
hair than without; and that the flies and sun would
be offered thus a beautiful opportunity, but without
avail. So we clipped him,--leaving, however, a beautiful
long scalp-lock in the middle of his crown. He
looked like High-low-kickapoo-waterpot, chief of
the Wam-wams. After a while he discovered it, and
was unhappy.
Shortly the riders began to come in, jingling up to
the shed, with a rattle of spurs and bit-chains. There
they unsaddled their horses, after which, with great
unanimity, they soused their heads in the horse-trough.
The chief, a six-footer, wearing beautifully decorated
gauntlets and a pair of white buckskin chaps, went
so far as to say it was a little warm for the time of
year. In the freshness of evening, when frazzled
nerves had regained their steadiness, he returned to
smoke and yarn with us and tell us of the peculiarities
of the cattle business in the Cuyamas. At present
he and his men were riding the great mountains, driving
the cattle to the lowlands in anticipation of a
rodeo the following week. A rodeo under that sun!
We slept in the ranch vehicles, so the air could get
under us. While the stars still shone, we crawled
out, tired and unrefreshed. The Tenderfoot and I
went down the valley after the horses. While we
looked, the dull pallid gray of dawn filtered into the
darkness, and so we saw our animals, out of proportion,
monstrous in the half light of that earliest morning.
Before the range riders were even astir we had
taken up our journey, filching thus a few hours from
the inimical sun.
Until ten o'clock we traveled in the valley of the
Cuyamas. The river was merely a broad sand and
stone bed, although undoubtedly there was water
below the surface. California rivers are said to flow
bottom up. To the northward were mountains typical
of the arid countries,--boldly defined, clear in
the edges of their folds, with sharp shadows and hard,
uncompromising surfaces. They looked brittle and
hollow, as though made of papier mache and set down
in the landscape. A long four hours' noon we spent
beneath a live-oak near a tiny spring. I tried to hunt,
but had to give it up. After that I lay on my back
and shot doves as they came to drink at the spring.
It was better than walking about, and quite as effective
as regards supper. A band of cattle filed stolidly
in, drank, and filed as stolidly away. Some half-wild
horses came to the edge of the hill, stamped, snorted,
essayed a tentative advance. Them we drove away,
lest they decoy our own animals. The flies would
not let us sleep. Dozens of valley and mountain
quail called with maddening cheerfulness and energy.
By a mighty exercise of will we got under way again.
In an hour we rode out into what seemed to be a grassy
foot-hill country, supplied with a most refreshing breeze.
The little round hills of a few hundred feet rolled
gently away to the artificial horizon made by their
closing in. The trail meandered white and distinct
through the clear fur-like brown of their grasses.
Cattle grazed. Here and there grew live-oaks, planted
singly as in a park. Beyond we could imagine the
great plain, grading insensibly into these little hills.
And then all at once we surmounted a slight
elevation, and found that we had been traveling on a
plateau, and that these apparent little hills were in
reality the peaks of high mountains.
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