on war-bags in which the heel of a slipper,
the edge of a razor-case, a bottle of sunburn lotion, and the tooth-end
of a comb made sleeping an adventure.

It was cold. It was always cold at night. But, in the morning, we
wakened to brilliant sunlight, to the new cook's breakfast, and to
another day in the saddle. We were roused at dawn by a shrill yell.

Startled, every one leaped to the opening of his tent and stared out. It
proved, however, not to be a mountain-lion, and was, indeed, nothing
more than one of the packers struggling to get into a wet pair of socks,
and giving vent to his irritation in a wild fury of wrath.

As Pete and Bill Shea and Tom Farmer threw the diamond hitch over the
packs that morning, they explained to me that all camp cooks are of two
kinds--the good cooks, who are evil of disposition, and the tin-can
cooks, who only need a can-opener to be happy. But I lived to be able to
refute that. Norman Lee was a cook, and he was also amiable.

But that morning, in spite of the bright sunlight, started ill. For
seven horses were missing, and before they were rounded up, the guides
had ridden a good forty miles of forest and trail. But, at last, the
wanderers were brought in and we were ready to pack.

On a pack-horse there are two sets of rope. There is a sling-rope,
twenty or twenty-five feet long, and a lash-rope, which should be
thirty-five feet long. The sling-rope holds the side pack; the top pack
is held by the lash-rope and the diamond hitch. When a cow-puncher on a
bronco yells for a diamond, he does not refer to a jewel. He means a
lash-rope. When the diamond is finally thrown, the packer puts his foot
against the horse's face and pulls. The packer pulls, and the horse
grunts. If the packer pulls a shade too much, the horse bucks, and there
is an exciting time in which everybody clears and the horse has the
field--every one, that is, but Joe, whose duty it was to be on the spot
in dangerous moments. Generally, however, by the time he got his camera
set up and everything ready, the bucker was feeding placidly and the
excitement was over.

We rather stole away from Round Prairie that morning. A settler had
taken advantage of a clearing some miles away to sow a little grain.
When our seven truants were found that brilliant morning, they had eaten
up practically the grain-field and were lying gorged in the center of
it.

[Illustration: _Bear-grass_]

So "we folded our tents like the Arab