THE POCKET HUNTER 



beans, a coffee-pot, a frying-pan, a tin to/ 

 mix bread in — he fed the burros in this ^ 

 when there was need — with these he had 

 been half round our western world and 

 back. He explained to me very early in our 

 acquaintance what was good to take to 

 the hills for food : nothing sticky, for that 

 "dirtied the pots ; " nothing with "juice " 

 to it, for that would not pack to advantage ; 

 and nothing likely to ferment. He used no 

 gun, but he would set snares by the water- 

 holes for quail and doves, and in the trout 

 country he carried a line. Burros he kept, 

 one or two according to his pack, for this 

 chief excellence, that they would eat potato 

 parings and firewood. He had owned a 

 horse in the foothill country, but when he 

 came to the desert with no forage but mes- 

 quite, he found himself under the neces- 

 sity of picking the beans from the briers, 

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