id he.

"About eight weeks the way you travel," amended a Ranger standing near.

Two days later a shakemaker came to help us fight fire.

"Oh, yes, they passed my place," said he. "I went out and tried to tell
him he was off'n the trail, but he waved me aside. 'We have our maps,'
says he, very lofty."

Twelve days subsequently I rode a day and a half to Jackass Meadow. They
told us the Jones party just passed! I wonder what became of them, and
how soon their barefooted horses got tender.

Now the tenderfoot one helps out, nor makes fun of, for he is merely
inexperienced and will learn. But this man is in the mountains every
summer. He likewise wishes to rope bears.

[Sidenote: An Object Lesson]

No better example could be instanced as to the value of camp alertness,
efficiency, the use of one's head, and the willingness to take advice. I
had with me at the time a younger brother whom I was putting through his
first paces; and Jones was to me invaluable as an object lesson.

The purpose of this chapter is not to tell you how to do things, but how
to go at them. If you can keep from getting lost, and if you can _keep
awake_, you will at least reach home safe. Other items of mental and
moral equipment you may need will come to you by natural development in
the environment to which the wild life brings you.

CHAPTER II

COMMON SENSE IN THE WILDERNESS

[Sidenote: Overburdening]

THERE is more danger that a man take too much than too little into the
wilderness. No matter how good his intentions may be, how
conscientiously he may follow advice, or how carefully he may examine
and re-examine his equipment, he will surely find that he is carrying a
great many pounds more than his companions, the professionals at the
business. At first this may affect him but little. He argues that he is
constructed on a different pattern from these men, that his training and
education are such as to have developed in him needs and habits such as
they have never known. Preconceived notions, especially when one is
fairly brought up in their influence, are most difficult to shake off.
Since we have worn coats all our lives, we include a coat in our list of
personal apparel just as unquestionably--even as unthinkingly--as we
should include in our calculations air to breathe and water to drink.
The coat is an institution so absolutely one of man's invariable
garments that it never even occurs to him to examine into its use or
u