h better when allowed a free range than when
picketed, as they then are at liberty to select such grass as suits
them. It may therefore be set down as an infallible rule never to be
departed from, that all animals, excepting such as will be likely to
stampede, should be turned loose for grazing immediately after arriving
at the camping-place; but it is equally important that they should be
carefully herded as near the camp as good grass will admit; and those
that it is necessary to picket should be placed upon the best grass,
and their places changed often. The ropes to which they are attached
should be about forty feet long; the picket-pins, of iron, fifteen
inches long, with ring and swivel at top, so that the rope shall not
twist as the animal feeds around it; and the pins must be firmly driven
into tenacious earth.

Animals should be herded during the day at such distances as to leave
sufficient grass undisturbed around and near the camp for grazing
through the night.

METHOD OF MARCHING.

Among men of limited experience in frontier life will be found a great
diversity of opinion regarding the best methods of marching, and of
treating animals in expeditions upon the prairies. Some will make late
starts and travel during the heat of the day without nooning, while
others will start early and make two marches, laying by during the
middle of the day; some will picket their animals continually in camp,
while others will herd them day and night, etc., etc. For mounted
troops, or, indeed, for any body of men traveling with horses and
mules, a few general rules may be specified which have the sanction of
mature experience, and a deviation from them will inevitably result in
consequences highly detrimental to the best interests of an expedition.

In ordinary marches through a country where grass and water are
abundant and good, animals receiving proper attention should not fall
away, even if they receive no grain; and, as I said before, they should
not be made to travel faster than a walk unless absolutely necessary;
neither should they be taken off the road for the purpose of hunting or
chasing buffalo, as one buffalo-chase injures them more than a week of
moderate riding. In the vicinity of hostile Indians, the animals must
be carefully herded and guarded within protection of the camp, while
those picketed should be changed as often as the grass is eaten off
within the circle described by the tether-rope. At night th