A Woman on tKe Trap-Trail 
By MARGARET A. RIDLEY 
A v.''inv.v’s trapping trip into the high sierras of Idaho, where for many months on end snows lie deep and 
the cold is intense, is a serious thing. That a woman and her invalid husband should contemplate and carry out 
such an undertaking, with its labors, its loneliness, its actual hardships and its possible dangers, shows that the 
material of which American pioneers was made is not yet exhausted. * 
Much is to be learned from an experience like this. Mrs. Ridley shows us not only the courage of a heroine 
under strange conditions, but also the powers of observation of a naturalist. She sees a thousand things that 
the trapper would never see, and exposes with delightful freshness a side of the .trapper’s life, which is wholly 
novel and unusual. 
No reader will enjoy her story more than the trapper, yet the man who knows nothing about trapping will 
find it as full of interest. Most of all, women will be thrilled by the simple story of courage, endurance and love. 
S EVERAL years ago my fausband and I 
spent a winter in the heart of the Bitter 
Root Mountains in Central Idaho. The 
country was then, as indeed it is .'^till, an un¬ 
broken wilderness. For hundreds of miles on 
every side there is not a human habitation save 
an occasional trapper’s cabin, and even these are 
many leagues apart. The experiences of that 
winter were so different from those of my sister 
women that I should like to tell them. 
At that time my husband and I were living 
in an adjoining State, near the boundary of 
Idaho. He is a physician and the duties of his 
profession bore on him very heavily at that time. 
The germs of tuberculosis, probably sown in his 
student days, were now developed under the 
strain of his work. We were young and very 
poor; the bread winner must do something to 
keep the pot boiling. To continue in the prac¬ 
tice of his profession was to face the certainty 
of death. He consulted with his professional 
friends and they urged him to spend a winter 
in the mountains. 
To do this without earning anything was im¬ 
possible. We gave the matter much careful 
thought. Finally we concluded that if we could 
find a place in the mountains where there were 
fur-bearing animals we might earn something 
by trapping them. He had never trapped, and 
knew nothing abo.ut the habits of these animals, 
nor, in fact, of the country they inhabited. Dili¬ 
gent reading of every book we could obtain upon 
the subject enlightened us in many things, and 
among others we learned that the mountain re¬ 
gions of our sister State still held fur-bearing 
animals in considerable numbers. Then we 
learned how they were captured, until, in theory 
at least, my husband was a skilled trapper. 
It was arranged that I should spend the winter 
with relatives, while he was to take along a 
partner in the person of a great Swede, who 
claimed to be an expert woodsman. When the 
time came to start, my heart failed me and I 
begged to be allowed to take the place of the 
Swede. I was not much of a woodswoman. it 
is true, but I could not bear to think of his 
going into the wilderness alone. He listened to 
all my arguments with a tolerant smile, no doubt 
thinking it a mere whim. When he found 'me 
insistent upon going he endeavored to dissuade 
me, but to no purpose. I had resolved to take 
the place of the Swede. What if some acci¬ 
dent should happen to him there in the moun¬ 
tains; who would be there to care for him? It 
never occurred to me that the male companion 
would be better qualified than I could possibly 
be! Finally it was decided that I should go. I 
can never tell you how happy I was then. 
One day in late September we stepped off the 
single passenger train that daily creeps up the 
beautiful Clearwater (Kooskia), winding around 
the curves of that crystal stream, beneath frown¬ 
ing black basalt cliffs hundreds of feet high, 
scowding down upon the train as though angry 
at the pigmy men and their puny engines that 
dared invale the sacred fastness. The train men 
unceremoniously dumped our camp equipage off 
the car and the train sped away. 
A ]\Ir. Roberts, with whom my husband had 
been in correspondence, was at the train to meet 
us. He had agreed to bring his pack horses and 
a saddle horse for each of us and convey us to 
our destination. He had agreed also to find the 
destination. We found Mr. Roberts a very pleas¬ 
ant man, and his every statement proved true. 
His pack horses were scattered about the little 
shed, wdiich did duty as a station, their saddles 
on their backs. Such odd looking arrangements 
they were. I could not see how he was ever 
going to make our great pile of stuff stay on 
the half dozen things which looked more like 
small saw horses than anything else, but I was 
soon to learn a great deal about life and to find 
out that a person wise in many things may still 
be very ignorant in others—about packing horses, 
for instance. 
The mount that was assigned me was a little 
fawn-colored thing, not much larger than a big 
goat it seemed to me. Mr. Roberts brought her 
up for me to inspect, and she was fitted out with 
a man’s heavy saddle that appeared to me about 
the clumsiest thing I had ever seen. I had never 
before ridden astride and w-as certain I could 
never accomplish it, but before many days I 
learned that no other saddle would prove ade¬ 
quate to the duty expected. It would be impos¬ 
sible without serious injury to the horse to ride 
a side saddle over places w'e rode. I learned, 
too, that size is not always a measure of strength, 
for that little mare carried me with the greatest 
ease over twenty miles of rough mountain trail 
every day and appeared to mind it not a bit. 
"Fawn,” as I immediately named her, had that 
peculiar little jog trot so common among the 
horses raised by the Indians. This gait carries 
the rider over a great deal of ground in a day 
and is the least tiring upon both horse and rider 
of any I know. The little creature was unlike 
a great many frontier horses, in that she was 
perfectly kind and gentle. She soon grew to 
know me and would beg for dainties. 
When it came to packing the horses I thought 
Mr. Roberts a greater magician than Hermann. 
He went about among our camp duffle, separat¬ 
ing the articles into various piles. I soon noticed 
that he had just twice as many heaps as he had 
pack animals. He would glance at the horses, 
then change a certain article to another heap. 
When all was arranged to his satisfaction he 
led up a horse and in a short time lashed the 
load assigned to that animal upon the saddle in 
such manner that it could not come off. This 
was accomplished by means of a complicated 
series of loops and knots in the lash rope which 
he said was the diamond hitch. I might learn 
a great many things in life, and doubtless will, 
but the diamond hitch is a thing that no woman 
can ever learn, and I shall never attempt it. 
When the load was finally lashed securely, that 
horse was turned loose and immediately began 
to graze as though there were no load of two 
hundred pounds ato’p his back. 
When the last horse was packed, and Mr. 
Roberts gave the order to mount, I fear it was 
a very awkward person who attempted to mount 
the little yellow mare that day. The woman who 
remembers how she felt the first time she mount¬ 
ed a horse cross saddle will be able to appre¬ 
ciate how I felt — and looked. The natives who 
had congregated to see us off covered themselves 
with honor in our sight, by not even smiling. 
All that warm afternoon we toiled up the 
steep canon side. The pack horses were led by 
an old gray mare with a bell, whose sole duty 
was to guide the laden horses, for she herself 
bore no pack. Next came Mr. Roberts mounted 
upon a tough sorrel, then my husband and my¬ 
self bringing up the rear. Often as we rounded 
a jutting point of hill the river became visible. 
It looked like a silver strand of ribbon drawn 
across a carpet of green. The houses of the 
village were as dolls’ houses and the people 
passing along the streets were their doll inhabi¬ 
tants. How clear the air is in these regions and 
