dawn almost over one's head. Blankets are rolled and strapped;
the pack-ponies groan and try to roll their packs off.

Bill Shea quotes a friend of his as contending that the way to keep a
pack-pony cinched is to put his pack on him, throw the diamond hitch,
cinch him as tight as possible, and then take him to a drinking-place
and fill him up with water. However, we did not resort to this.

V

TO KINTLA LAKE

We had washed at dawn in the cold lake. The rain had turned to snow in
the night, and the mountains were covered with a fresh white coating.
And then, at last, we were off, the wagons first, although we were soon
to pass them. We had lifted the boats out of the water and put them
lovingly in their straw again. And Mike and George formed the crew. The
guides were ready with facetious comments.

"Put up a sail!" they called. "Never give up the ship!" was another
favorite. The Head, who has a secret conviction that he should have had
his voice trained, warbled joyously:--

"I'll stick to the ship, lads;
You save your lives.
I've no one to love me;
You've children and wives."

And so, still in the cool of the morning, our long procession mounted
the rise which some great glacier deposited ages ago at the foot of
what is now Bowman Lake. We turned longing eyes back as we left the lake
to its winter ice and quiet. For never again, probably, will it be ours.
We have given its secret to the world.

At two o'clock we found a ranger's cabin and rode into its enclosure for
luncheon. Breakfast had been early, and we were very hungry. We had gone
long miles through the thick and silent forest, and now we wanted food.
We wanted food more than we wanted anything else in the world. We sat in
a circle on the ground and talked about food.

And, at last, the chuck-wagon drove in. It had had a long, slow trip. We
stood up and gave a hungry cheer, and then--_Bill was gone!_ Some miles
back he had halted the wagon, got out, taken his bed on his back, and
started toward civilization afoot. We stared blankly at the teamster.

"Well," we said; "what did he say?"

"All he said to me was, 'So long,'" said the teamster.

And that was all there was to it. So there we were in the wilderness,
far, far from a cook. The hub of our universe had departed. Or, to make
the figure modern, we had blown out a tire. And we had no spare one.

I made my declaration of independence at on