hat has it not cost me in sleepless nights
and family coldness and aching muscles!

So I find this note in my daily journal, written that day on horseback,
and therefore not very legible:--

Mem: After this, must lie over the camp-ground
until I find a place that fits me to sleep on.
Then have the tent erected over it.

There was a little dissension in the party that morning, Joe having
wakened in the night while being violently shoved out under the edge of
his tent by his companion, who was a restless sleeper. But ill-temper
cannot live long in the open. We settled to the swinging walk of the
trail. In the mountain meadows there were carpets of flowers. They
furnished highly esthetic if not very substantial food for our horses
during our brief rests. They were very brief, those rests. All too soon,
Pete would bring Angel to me, and I would vault into the
saddle--extremely figurative, this--and we would fall into line, Pete
swaying with the cowboy's roll in the saddle, the Optimist bouncing
freely, Joe with an eye on that pack-horse which carried the delicacies
of the trip, the Big Boy with long legs that almost touched the ground,
the Middle Boy with eyes roving for adventure, the Little Boy deadly
serious and hoping for a bear. And somewhere in the rear, where he could
watch all responsibilities and supply the smokers with matches, the
Head.

That second day, we crossed Dutch Ridge and approached the Flathead.
What I have called here the Flathead is known locally as the North Fork.
The pack-outfit had started first. Long before we caught up with them,
we heard the bells on the lead horses ringing faintly.

Passing a pack-outfit on the trail is a difficult matter. The wise
little horses, traveling free and looked after only by a wrangler or
two, do not like to be passed. One of two things happens when the
saddle-outfit tries to pass the pack. Either the pack starts on a smart
canter ahead, or it turns wildly off into the forest to the
accompaniment of much complaint by the drivers. A pack-horse loose on a
narrow trail is a dangerous matter. With its bulging pack, it worms its
way past anything on the trail, and bad accidents have followed. Here,
however, there was room for us to pass.

Tiny gophers sat up beside the trail and squeaked at us. A coyote
yelped. Bumping over fallen trees, creaking and groaning and swaying,
came the boat-wagon. Mike had found a fishing-line somewhere, an