380 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



a beast on a road, 200 Ibs. is a full load for such a creature as 

 the ordinary cayuse on such trails as those which generally 

 lead to game countries. 



Having bought your ponies and hired a man as camp 

 cook who can pack and look after the beasts, take precautions 

 against losing your animals. Of course your packer ought to 

 do this, but he won't. Buy picket pegs and ropes for your 

 saddle-horses, and good leather hobbles for the pack animals, 

 as well as a bell for the leader of the pack train, and see, 

 personally, that for the first few nights, at any rate, every horse 

 is hobbled or picketed, including even your hunter's horse, in 

 spite of his protestations that ' that cayuse won't stray ' ; and see, 

 too, that one of the horses has the bell on at night. During 

 the day you can take the bell off or silence it by shoving a fir 

 cone into it, or some such simple device, if you hope to see 

 game along the trail ; but at night, insist upon the bell and 

 the hobbles being worn, and in this way even if your beasts 

 have only poor feed they won't stray far, whilst if they do 

 the bell will help you to find them. As I pen these lines I 

 am as sure that some one of my readers will curse his luck for 

 having neglected this advice as I am that death and the tax- 

 man will arrive in due season. In passing, I may remark that 

 the man who takes the trouble to silence his pack train's bell 

 and his packers' mouths, whilst he rides half a mile ahead of 

 his train when on the march, will secure many a shot which 

 would otherwise never have fallen to his share. 



In picketing your horses use a bowline knot, see that the 

 loop made will run easily round the tree to which each horse 

 is tied if you are not using a proper picket, and in any case 

 see that there are no bushes or stumps in his way round which 

 he can get tied up in the night. 



Next to your ponies your pack-saddles are the most im- 

 portant part of your equipment, and though you can no doubt 

 pack either with ordinary pack-saddles, or with parfleches 

 (mere leathern envelopes depending from either side of the 

 pony), still the best of all the many contrivances for packing 



