t have any more trouble that night.

CHAPTER III

THE BIG TROUT

It was mighty hard work, turning out at five o'clock in the morning.
That was regulations, while on the march--to get up at five. The ones
who didn't turn out promptly had to do the dirty work--police the camp,
which is to clean it, you know.

Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand cooked; I helped, by opening packages,
preparing potatoes (if we had them), tending fire, etc.; Major Henry
chopped wood; Kit Carson and little Jed Smith looked after the burros,
Apache and Sally, and scouted in a circle for hostile sign; General
Ashley put the bedding in shape to pack.

But first it was regulations to take a cold wet rub when we were near
water. It made us glow and kept us in good shape. Then we brushed our
teeth and combed our hair. (Note 17.) After breakfast we policed the
camp, and dumped everything into a hole, or burned it, so that we left
the place just about as we had found it. We stamped out the fire, or put
dirt and water on it, of course. Then we packed the burros. General
Ashley, Jed Smith, and Kit Carson packed Sally; Major Henry, Thomas
Fitzpatrick, and I packed Apache. And by six-thirty we were on our way.

This morning we kept on up Ute Creek. It had its rise in Gray Bull
Basin, at the foot of old Pilot Peak, about forty miles away. We thought
we could make Gray Bull Basin in three days. Ten or twelve miles a day,
with burros, on the trail, up-hill all the way, is about as fast as
Scouts like us can keep going. Beyond Gray Bull we would have to find
our own trail over Pilot Peak.

Everything was fine, this morning. Birds were hopping among the cedars
and spruces, and in some places the ground was red with wild
strawberries. Pine squirrels scolded at us, and we saw two rabbits; but
we didn't stop to shoot them. We had bacon, and could catch trout higher
up the creek. Here were some beaver dams, and around the first dam lived
a big trout that nobody had been able to land. The beaver dams were
famous camping places for parties who could go this far, and everybody
claimed to have hooked the big trout and to have lost him again. He was
a native Rocky Mountain trout, and weighed four pounds--but he was
educated. He wouldn't be caught. He had only one eye; that was how
people knew him.

We didn't count upon that big trout, but we rather counted upon some
smaller ones; and anyway we must hustle on and put those ten miles
behind us before the enemy go