* * * *

Getting a pack-outfit ready for a long trip into the wilderness is a
serious matter. We were taking thirty-one horses, guides, packers, and
a cook. But we were doing more than that--we were taking two boats! This
was Bob's idea. Any highly original idea, such as taking boats where not
even tourists had gone before, or putting eggs on a bucking horse, or
carrying grapefruit for breakfast into the wilderness, was Bob's idea.

"You see, I figure it out like this," he said, when, on our arrival at
Belton, we found the boats among our equipment: "If we can get those
boats up to the Canadian line and come down the Flathead rapids all the
way, it will only take about four days on the river. It's a stunt that's
never been pulled off."

"Do you mean," I said, "that we are going to run four days of rapids
that have never been run?"

"That's it."

I looked around. There, in a group, were the Head and the Big Boy and
the Middle Boy and the Little Boy. And a fortune-teller at Atlantic City
had told me to beware of water!

"At the worst places," the Optimist continued, "we can send Joe ahead
in one boat with the 'movie' outfit, and get you as you come along."

"I dare say," I observed, with some bitterness. "Of course we may upset.
But if we do, I'll try to go down for the third time in front of the
camera."

But even then the boats were being hoisted into a wagon-bed filled with
hay. And I knew that I was going to run four days of rapids. It was
written.

It was a bright morning. In a corral, the horses were waiting to be
packed. Rolls of blankets, crates of food, and camping-utensils lay
everywhere. The Big Boy marshaled the fishing-tackle. Bill, the cook,
was searching the town for the top of an old stove to bake on. We had
provided two reflector ovens, but he regarded them with suspicion. They
would, he suspected, not do justice to his specialty, the corn-meal
saddle-bag, a sort of sublimated hot cake.

I strolled to the corral and cast a horsewoman's eye on my mount.

[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY KISER PHOTO CO.
_Looking south from Pollock Pass, Glacier National Park_]

"He looks like a very nice horse," I said. "He's quite handsome."

Pete tightened up the cinch.

"Yes," he observed; "he's all right. He's a pretty good mare."

The Head was wandering around with lists in his hand. His conversation
ran something like this:--

"Pocket-flashes, chocolate, jam, medicine-ca