CHAPTER II 

 GETTING STARTED 



NEXT day we set out by rail for Hillsboro, a cow 

 town at the foot of the Black Range some seventy- 

 eight miles from Silver City. This was our real 

 starting point, where Brown and Ewing, the pack- 

 ers, were to meet us with an outfit of twenty burros 

 and the two horses they needed for " wrangling. " 

 For a considerable part of our progress through the 

 mountains would be along narrow trails where 

 wagons are impracticable and where packing with 

 burros is by far the safest and cheapest method of 

 moving camp. 



At the station in Silver City, just before starting, 

 an amusing but somewhat disquieting incident oc- 

 curred. We were busy getting our stuff on the train 

 each man having a bed of three or four blankets 

 rolled in a sixteen foot "tarp" and a dufflebag full 

 of clothes, when Horace arrived and indicated a 

 formidable pile of bags and boxes as his contribu- 

 tion. 



Frazer eyed the array aghast. 



"What's all that?" he exclaimed. 



"My outfit," replied Horace, with pardonable 

 pride. 



9 



