The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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closely.
“It’s always a good thing to get the camp work done quickly mornings and evenings,” replied the leader of the party. “We’ve got a long trip ahead, and I’d like to average twenty-five miles a day for a while, if I could. Maybe we’ll have to content ourselves with fifteen miles a good many days. The best way is to get an early start and make a long drive, and an early camp. Then get your packs off as early as you can, and let your horses rest — that’s always good doctrine.”
“Well, one thing,” said Jesse, “I hope the mosquitoes won’t be any worse than they are now.”
“Well,” Uncle Dick replied, “when we get higher up the nights will get cool earlier, but we’ll have mosquitoes all the way across, that’s pretty sure. But you fellows mustn’t mind a thing like that. We’ve all got our mosquito bars and tents, and very good ones too.”
“No good for fight mosquito,” said Moise, grinning. “He’s too many.”
“Oh, go on, Moise, they don’t hurt you when they bite you,” said John.
“Nor will they hurt you so badly after a time,” Uncle Dick said to him. “You get used to it — at least, to some extent. But there is something in what Moise has told you — don’t fight mosquitoes too hard, so that you get excited and nervous over it. Don’t slap hard enough to kill a dog — just brush them off easy. Take your trouble as easy as you can on trail — that’s good advice. This isn’t feather-bed work, exactly; but then I don’t call you boys tenderfeet, exactly, either. Now go and finish the beds up for the night before it gets too dark.”
Jesse crawled into the back part of the tent and fished out three specially made nets, each of cheese-cloth sewed to a long strip of canvas perhaps six feet long and two and one-half feet wide. At each corner of this canvas a cord was sewed, so that it could be tied to a tent-pole, or to a safety-pin stuck in the top of the tent. Then the sides, which were long and full, could be tucked in at the edges of the bed, so that no mosquitoes could get in. Each boy had his own net for his own bed, so that, if he was careful in getting in under the net, he would be pretty sure of sleeping free from the mosquitoes, no matter how bad they were. Uncle Dick had a similar net for his own little shelter-tent. As for Moise, he had a head-net and a ragged piece of bar which he did not use half the time, thinking it rather beneath him to pay too much attention to the small nuisances.
“You’ll better go to bed pretty soon, young mans,” said Moise, speaking to his young friends after they had finished their supper. “If those fly bite me, he’ll got sick of eating so much smoke, him. But those fly, he like to bite little boy.” And he laughed heartily, as he saw the young companions continually brushing at their faces.
Uncle Dick drew apart from the camp at the time and went out to the edge of the bank, looking down at the water far below.
“You can bet that’s a steep climb,” commented John — “two hundred feet, I should think. And I don’t see how we’ll get the horses down there in the morning.”
“At least one hundred and fifty feet,” assented his uncle. “But I reckon we can get across it somehow, if the engineers can get a railroad and trains of cars over it — and that’s what they’re going to do next year. But, as I have told you, never worry until the time comes when you’re on the trail. The troubles’ll come along fast enough, perhaps, without our hurrying them up any. Take things easy — that’s what gets engineers and horses and railroads across the Rockies.”
“How long before we get to the Rockies, Uncle Dick?” inquired John, pointing to the west, where the clouds had now hidden the distant range from view.
“All in due time, all in due time, my son,” replied the engineer, smiling down at him. “A good deal depends on how quickly we can make and break camp, and how many miles we can get done each day through muskeg and bush and over all sorts of trails and fords. For instance, if we lost half our horses in Wolf Creek here to-morrow, we might have to make quite a wait. But don’t worry — just turn in before the mosquitoes get you.”
III
HITTING THE TRAIL
“Look on the tent, fellows!” exclaimed Jesse, the first thing next morning, just as dawn was beginning to break. “It’s almost solid mosquitoes!”
“About a million,” said John, sitting up in his blankets. “All of them with cold feet, waiting for the sun to come up.”
They were looking at the top of the tent, where in the folds of the netting a great cloud of mosquitoes had gathered in the effort to get through the cheese-cloth.
“Did any bite you in the night, Jesse?” asked Rob, from his bed.
“No, but I could hear them sing a good deal until I went to sleep.”
“Well, come ahead; let’s roll out,” said Rob. “All those mosquitoes will come to life when it gets warm.”
They kicked off the blankets, slipped into their clothing, and soon were out in the cool morning air. The spring night had been a dewy one, and all the shrubs and grasses were very wet.
“Hello there, young mans!” they heard a voice exclaim, and saw Moise’s head thrust out from beneath his shelter. “You’ll got up pretty early, no?”
“Well, we’ve got to be moving early,” said Rob. “Anyway, we beat Uncle Dick up this morning.”
“That’s right,” called out the voice of Uncle Dick, from his tent, “but the quicker we get started the quicker we’ll get over Wolf Creek. Now you boys go over there where you hear the gray mare’s bell and see if you can round up all the pack-train. You’ll learn before long that half the campaign of a pack-train trip is hunting horses in the morning. But they’ll stick close where the pea-vine is thick as it is here.”
Our three young Alaskans were used to wet grass in the morning, and after the first plunge, which wet them to the skin, they did not mind the dew-covered herbage. Soon, shouting and running, they were rounding up the hobbled pack-horses, which, with the usual difficulty, they finally succeeded in driving up close to the camp, where by this time Moise had his fire going. The wilder of the horses they tied to trees near by, but some of the older ones stood unhitched with heads drooping in the chill morning air, as though unhappy, but resigned to their fate. Moise, as usual, rewarded old gray Betsy, the bell-mare, with a lump of sugar as she passed by. The others, with the strange instinct of pack-horses to follow a leader, grouped themselves near to the old white mare. The boys put the blankets over the backs of some of the horses while waiting for Moise to finish his breakfast.
“Grub pile!” sung out Moise, after a while; and soon, in the damp morning air, with white mist hanging over the low land about them, they were eating their morning meal.
“Tea for breakfast,” said Rob, smiling. “Well, I suppose it’s all right up here, but in our country we mostly have coffee.”
“We’d have it here if we could get it good,” said Uncle Dick; “but, you see, we’re a good ways from home, and coffee doesn’t keep as well as tea on the trail, besides being much bulkier.”
“Now,” said Jesse, his mouth full of bacon, “as soon as I get done breakfast I’m going to try that diamond hitch all over again. Moise says the one I did yesterday slipped on him.”
“That’s happened to many a good packer,” said Uncle Dick. “Sometimes a pack gets snagged in the bush, or all sorts of other things may happen to it. They tell me that a mule will look at two trees and not try to go between them if it sees the pack won’t squeeze through, but with some of these northern cayuses I think they try to see how many times they can crowd through between trees and scrape off their packs. But finish your breakfast, young men, and eat plenty, because we’re going to have a long trip to-day.”
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