sired mightily to body them
forth to ourselves as facts. The extent of our mental vision expanded.
We heard of other mountains far beyond these farthest--mountains whose
almost unexplored vastnesses contained great forests, mighty valleys,
strong water-courses, beautiful hanging-meadows, deep canons of
granite, eternal snows,--mountains so extended, so wonderful, that
their secrets offered whole summers of solitary exploration. We came
to feel their marvel, we came to respect the inferno of the Desert that
hemmed them in. Shortly we graduated from the indefiniteness of
railroad maps to the intricacies of geological survey charts. The
fever was on us. We must go.

A dozen of us desired. Three of us went; and of the manner of our
going, and what you must know who would do likewise, I shall try here
to tell.

II

ON EQUIPMENT

If you would travel far in the great mountains where the trails are few
and bad, you will need a certain unique experience and skill. Before
you dare venture forth without a guide, you must be able to do a number
of things, and to do them well.

First and foremost of all, you must be possessed of that strange sixth
sense best described as the sense of direction. By it you always know
about where you are. It is to some degree a memory for back-tracks and
landmarks, but to a greater extent an instinct for the lay of the
country, for relative bearings, by which you are able to make your way
across-lots back to your starting-place. It is not an uncommon
faculty, yet some lack it utterly. If you are one of the latter class,
do not venture, for you will get lost as sure as shooting, and being
lost in the mountains is no joke.

Some men possess it; others do not. The distinction seems to be almost
arbitrary. It can be largely developed, but only in those with whom
original endowment of the faculty makes development possible. No matter
how long a direction-blind man frequents the wilderness, he is never
sure of himself. Nor is the lack any reflection on the intelligence. I
once traveled in the Black Hills with a young fellow who himself
frankly confessed that after much experiment he had come to the
conclusion he could not "find himself." He asked me to keep near him,
and this I did as well as I could; but even then, three times during
the course of ten days he lost himself completely in the tumultuous
upheavals and canons of that badly mixed region. Another, an old
grouse-hunter