consequence, receive always
your first consideration. As long as they have rest and food, you are
sure of getting along; as soon as they fail, you are reduced to
difficulties. So absolute is this truth that it has passed into an
idiom. When a Westerner wants to tell you that he lacks a thing, he
informs you he is "afoot" for it. "Give me a fill for my pipe," he
begs; "I'm plumb afoot for tobacco."

Consequently you think last of your own comfort. In casting about for a
place to spend the night, you look out for good feed. That assured,
all else is of slight importance; you make the best of whatever camping
facilities may happen to be attached. If necessary you will sleep on
granite or in a marsh, walk a mile for firewood or water, if only your
animals are well provided for. And on the trail you often will work
twice as hard as they merely to save them a little. In whatever I may
tell you regarding practical expedients, keep this always in mind.

As to the little details of your daily routine in the mountains, many
are worth setting down, however trivial they may seem. They mark the
difference between the greenhorn and the old-timer; but, more
important, they mark also the difference between the right and the
wrong, the efficient and the inefficient ways of doing things.

In the morning the cook for the day is the first man afoot, usually
about half past four. He blows on his fingers, casts malevolent
glances at the sleepers, finally builds his fire and starts his meal.
Then he takes fiendish delight in kicking out the others. They do not
run with glad shouts to plunge into the nearest pool, as most camping
fiction would have us believe. Not they. The glad shout and nearest
pool can wait until noon when the sun is warm. They, too, blow on
their fingers and curse the cook for getting them up so early. All eat
breakfast and feel better.

Now the cook smokes in lordly ease. One of the other men washes the
dishes, while his companion goes forth to drive in the horses. Washing
dishes is bad enough, but fumbling with frozen fingers at stubborn
hobble-buckles is worse. At camp the horses are caught, and each is
tied near his own saddle and pack.

The saddle-horses are attended to first. Thus they are available for
business in case some of the others should make trouble. You will see
that your saddle-blankets are perfectly smooth, and so laid that the
edges are to the front where they are least likely to