With Gun Rod in Canada 



goods and chattels, they would be curiously inefficient 

 when it came to finding things and bringing them to 

 you. The inevitable blanket, so nonchalantly worn by 

 all classes of Ute Indians when not actually fighting, 

 dancing, or hunting, always struck me as a convenient 

 place for concealing other people's possessions. 



Dave held council with the Chief in the Ute language, 

 and after proffering a chew of tobacco, which was 

 readily accepted, mounted his horse and joined me. 



The Utes had huge smoke fires going, and hundreds 

 of pounds of venison strung upon baling wire in the 

 dense fumes. The Chief told David they had had good 

 hunting, and had killed some forty blacktail in a steep 

 blind canyon, the mouth of which showed to the south 

 about half a mile beyond the camp. 



We rode straight on to the north-west, following an 

 old creek bed up Baldy Mountain. Toward night the 

 going began to get steep. There was no marked trail. 

 Our path was interspersed with rocky stretches covered 

 with quaking-asp and beautiful little open grassy 

 meadows, or parks, as the Mormons call them. We 

 camped that night beside a crystal mountain pool, my 

 aneroid barometer showing an elevation of five thousand 

 five hundred feet. The feed was excellent for the 

 horses. There were fresh elk tracks, and although the 

 night was cool, it was clear and not windy. We did not 

 hobble the horses, as Dave said they would not leave 

 the good level feeding-ground of the park for the rough 

 country we had quit. I have noted that when packing 

 through the mountains of the West, as you make altitude 

 and get into a country strange to your horses, they are 

 more dependent upon their masters, and are not so apt 

 to stray far from the camp-fire. It may be they feel 

 the need of the protection of human beings, as it is in 

 these mountains that both the grizzly bear and cougar 



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