202 PINK AND SCARLET 



" Take a thirty-foot picket rope, throw half on 

 each side of the horse, the middle of the rope lying 

 across the top of the pack ; then let each man make 

 a loop, putting his foot into it as a stirrup, as shown 

 in Figf. I. Then the man on one side takes his end 

 of the rope (Fig. i), and passing it first down 

 through his stirrup-loop, puts it then under the 

 horse's belly and through his companion's stirrup- 

 loop on the other side (both meanwhile holding taut 

 with one hand above). When he has pulled the 

 slack of his part of the rope through (but not till 

 then), he tells his companion to slip his foot out, and 

 at the same time smartly hauls the caught-up stirrup- 

 loop into its place under the horse's belly (as in Fig. 

 2). Then his companion in turn takes his end of the 

 rope, and reaching under the horse's belly, puts it 

 through the remaining stirrup-loop (which the first 

 man has meanwhile kept his foot in), and hauls it 

 similarly into place on the other side of the belly ; 

 then both on their respective sides give a good 

 pull together, make everything taut (as in Fig. 2), 

 and all that remains to be done is to tie the spare 

 rope ends with a good double-reef knot (pulling tight 

 again when making it) on the top of the pack. In 

 Fig. 2 the final fastening knot on the top is only 

 indicated by a dotted line, so as not to unnecessarily 

 complicate the drawing. 



" Now, with reference to what I said above about 

 pack-saddles. All the saddle that this tie requires 

 is a large pad ; therefore, if blankets are a part of 

 the pack, they make the pad. First lay an old half 



