hey had
managed to get Indians to carry the twenty-five-hundred-pound outfit.
From that point their own backs must do the work. They planned to move
forward at the rate of a mile a day. It looked easy--on paper. Since
John Bellew was to stay in camp and do the cooking, he would be unable
to make more than an occasional pack; so to each of the three young men
fell the task of carrying eight hundred pounds one mile each day. If
they made fifty-pound packs, it meant a daily walk of sixteen miles
loaded and of fifteen miles light--"Because we don't back-trip the last
time," Kit explained the pleasant discovery. Eighty-pound packs meant
nineteen miles travel each day; and hundred-pound packs meant only
fifteen miles.

"I don't like walking," said Kit. "Therefore I shall carry one hundred
pounds." He caught the grin of incredulity on his uncle's face, and
added hastily: "Of course I shall work up to it. A fellow's got to learn
the ropes and tricks. I'll start with fifty."

He did, and ambled gaily along the trail. He dropped the sack at the
next camp-site and ambled back. It was easier than he had thought. But
two miles had rubbed off the velvet of his strength and exposed the
underlying softness. His second pack was sixty-five pounds. It was more
difficult, and he no longer ambled. Several times, following the custom
of all packers, he sat down on the ground, resting the pack behind him
on a rock or stump. With the third pack he became bold. He fastened the
straps to a ninety-five-pound sack of beans and started. At the end of a
hundred yards he felt that he must collapse. He sat down and mopped his
face.

"Short hauls and short rests," he muttered. "That's the trick."

Sometimes he did not make a hundred yards, and each time he struggled to
his feet for another short haul the pack became undeniably heavier.
He panted for breath, and the sweat streamed from him. Before he had
covered a quarter of a mile he stripped off his woollen shirt and hung
it on a tree. A little later he discarded his hat. At the end of half a
mile he decided he was finished. He had never exerted himself so in his
life, and he knew that he was finished. As he sat and panted, his gaze
fell upon the big revolver and the heavy cartridge-belt.

"Ten pounds of junk!" he sneered, as he unbuckled it.

He did not bother to hang it on a tree, but flung it into the underbush.
And as the steady tide of packers flowed by him, up trail and down,
he noted tha