370 WESTERN GRAZING GROUNDS AND FOREST RANGES 



to make a hitch about the pack and draw it as tight as 

 possible. Repeat this again another foot back and make 

 the end fast. 



This pack will ride all day long but like any other pack 

 it will need tightening following the natural loosening 

 up of the rope, due to the settling of the load. The 

 beauty of it is that it can turn over and do no 

 harm. Going up a steep mountain trail, if it is not pret- 

 ty tight it is likely to be shed over the animal's tail, in 

 which event you will have a stampede and some scat- 

 tered bedding to pick up. With a mixed pack, however, 

 a lot of bedding, cooking utensils and grub, one must 

 either have them done up into bundles, tied in sacks 

 or packed in "kyaks" or pack pockets. In California 

 they call them alforjas (al-fork-has). These are either 

 heavy canvas or leather bags or made by taking ordi- 

 nary ten gallon coaloil cases or other wooden boxes 

 about the same size, and stretching over them a fresh 

 rawhide. The hide of a yearling steer is the best for 

 this purpose. 



With a pair of leather or rope ears these are swung 

 over the pack saddle, filled with the easily broken or 

 "losable stuff" and the blankets spread over them. On 

 top of this place the canvas and you have a mighty good 

 pack to carry almost anything that a man wants to pack 

 in the mountains. 



Now for the Hitch. Of all the many western hitches 

 for pack purposes the one used in California by the For- 

 est rangers in the Sierras is to my mind the most easily 

 learned, the easiest to remember after being out of prac- 

 tice for a year or so and the easiest for one man to 

 handle, alone. 



With two men, the man on the "off" side takes the 



