A TYPICAL MOUNTAINEER. 81 



paper into the bird-skin. These boxes were carried 

 over trails and on the cars as hand-baggage. Eames, 

 the student who was with Dyche this year, fashioned 

 a pack-saddle for his shoulders, and marched ahead 

 of the pack-animals with the two boxes of mounted 

 birds. Arriving at their destination, it was found 

 that the journey of several hundred miles had done 

 no damage to the frailest specimen. 



Dyche concluded to give his wife a taste of real 

 mountain life, and just as he was considering a 

 trip to Camp Bear Trail, Beaty, the mica-miner, 

 came up from Las Vegas on his way to his ranch, 

 which was established at the head-waters of the 

 Pecos, about ten miles from the ridge on which 

 Dyche and Brown had passed through the terrible 

 electrical storm. The miner gave them such a hearty 

 invitation to accompany him home that they ac- 

 cepted, and he promised the best hunting and fishing 

 in the country. The hardships of a three-days' jour- 

 ney over the roughest part of the mountains did not 

 deter Mrs. Dyche, and early one morning the start 

 was made, old Reuben carrying Mrs. Dyche. With 

 Beaty in the lead picking out the trail and Dyche 

 in the rear to punch up stragglers, they went up the 

 mountains, Beaty beguiling the way with many 

 quaint stories. 



All signs of a trail finally faded away and merged 

 into a tangled network of underbrush and fallen 

 timber. Dyche offered Beaty a small hand axe with 

 which to cut his way, but the latter declined, and 

 drawing an immense knife from his belt, remarked : 

 "This is sure the thing for that kind of work. 



