THE PERSONNEL OF THE PACK TRAIN. 



and attentive to business that after the first 

 few days he was chosen to carry the cam- 

 eras and the photo supplies, and always 

 landed them in camp safe. His one failing 

 was that he was not willing to have any 

 other horse than his regular file leader go 

 ahead of him in the trail, and if one under- 

 took to intrude, Brownie would go for him 

 with his mouth open as if he were going 

 to bite him in 2. If the interloper did not 

 take the hint and make himself scarce he 

 was liable to get severely chewed. Brownie 

 posed as a cannibal. One would think to 

 see him go for an unwelcome neighbor, that 

 he was going to bite out a chunk and eat 

 it raw ; but he did more bluffing than real 

 biting. 



Darkey was so named because he was 

 blacker than Brownie, and because his own- 

 er liked him too well to call him Nigger- 

 Darkey is a jet black, plump, shining, hand- 

 some little cayuse, and weighs about 650 

 pounds. He is as wild as the famous horses 

 of Tartary, yet means to be as gentle 

 as a kitten. He always acted as if he 

 thought he was going to be basted with a 

 club every time we started to pack him. 

 When any of us picked up a bundle and 

 started to put it on him he would jump 

 as if he thought it was full of hornets. 

 By treating him with the utmost kindness 

 and gentleness, we tamed him a good deal, 

 during the 3 months we had him, but still 

 he showed his shy and retiring disposition 

 to the last. I imagine he had been shame- 

 fully abused when being broken for the 

 pack, but I believe if we had worked him 

 another 2 months he would have been en- 

 tirely cured of his early impressions. 



When once the load was put on Darkey, 

 and he was turned loose, there was no 

 more trouble with him. He never devel- 

 oped a bad trait on the trail, but always 

 attended strictly to business, stayed in his 

 place and if, in any kind of a mixup, he 

 lost his file leader a moment, Darkey took 

 advantage of the first opportunity to get 

 back to his proper place. 



We had a lot of fun with Darkey about 

 yellow jackets. We stirred up about 50 of 

 their nests in or close to the trail, during 

 the trip, and Darkey never seemed to get 

 on to their curves. The other horses, when 

 they saw trouble of this kind ahead, would 

 leave the trail, and shy around the storm 

 center ; but poor little Darkey would go on 

 about his business. When he reached the 

 yellow jackets' nest the first one or 2 would 

 hit him on the fore leg. Darkey always 

 seemed to think they were horse flies, and 

 would stop to fight them off. By that time 

 half a dozen others would land on him at 

 various points, wake him up to the real 

 situation, and he would stampede. Then 

 the other horses must get out of his way, 



or be run over. He would knock down 

 dead trees, or live horses, or men, or any- 

 thing else that got in his way until he 

 placed several acres of land between him 

 and the scene of trouble. 



Maude was one of the most interesting 

 studies in the whole train. She was wild, 

 uncontrollable and reckless. She had no 

 fixed place in the line of march, and if we 

 put her in a certain file when leaving camp, 

 she would not stay there 10 minutes. She 

 would break out and in and would follow 

 every horse in the train, by turns. She 

 never stayed in the trail a mile at a time, 

 if there was any possible chance of getting 

 out without breaking her blooming neck. 

 No matter how good the trail might be, 

 how deep the mud, how thick the brush 

 or intricate the barricade of fallen trees, 

 how dangerous the slide rocks on both 

 sides of the trail, Maude would sail out to 

 one side and get in trouble if possible. If 

 we were traveling in an open country she 

 was constantly on the wing, on either side 

 of the trail, like a high strung pointer hunt- 

 ing birds. She caused more profanity than 

 all the other horses together. I wore out 

 my quirt and my vocal organs, day after 

 day, trying to break her of this pernicious, 

 habit, but all to no avail. She was as su- 

 premely pestiferous the last day of the trip 

 as the first. 



We called her all kinds of names. For 

 instance, the Lamp Shade Girl, on account 

 of the peculiar shape which her load as- 

 sumed one day. At other times we 

 dubbed her Maude the Ranger. Some- 

 times when she was gentle and lovable a 

 few minutes we called her Maude Adams. 

 Again, when she gave us an exhibi- 

 tion of her uncontrollable spirits, we called 

 her Maude Byron. When, after a hard 

 day's work, she began to show the effects 

 of old age, we called her Maude Granger. 

 When she was especially kind and affec- 

 tionate, we called her Maude Brock- 

 way. Again, when we went out to look 

 for her in the morning and could not find 

 her,_ we called her Maude Gonne. 

 Wright and Tom sometimes called her 

 other names, that would not do to print, 

 so I skip them. 



We asked Brewster what he ever bought 

 such an intractable creature for, anyway. 

 He said he did not buy her ; that an Indian 

 came along one day leading her, and want- 

 ed to trade her for some other horse, 

 any old horse he .could get. Brewster had 

 in the corral at the time a big, vicious 

 bronco that no one had ever been able to 

 ride or pack without getting killed or his 

 outfit kicked into the next province. 



"And," said Billy, "I told the Indian to 

 turn the mare into the corral and take the 

 horse. He did so, and I never heard what 



