The question now arose, should they go horseback, or afoot with pack-burros,—a string of which Long Lester yearned to pilot.
True, a mountain-bred pony will hop and slide up and down mountain ledges that would make an Eastern horse’s hair literally stand on end. They have been born and bred to it, physically and mentally. They have been known to sit back almost on their haunches and slide when they could get down no other way. Some of them will walk a log twenty feet above the surface of a stream. (The Eastern rider will find that hard to believe, until he recalls the feats of circus horses.) But not all horses are alike, any more than people. Why should the plains horse and the park horse and good old Dobbin, the farm horse, be equine mountaineers and prospectors?
“Shank’s horses” and the pack-burros won the final ballot,—to Pedro’s open dismay. But they would first ride the well-defined two-days’ horseback trail from Giant Forest to the Kings’ River Canyon, and Giant Forest is an automobile stage ride from Fresno, which is another short day’s ride from Huntington Lake.
(Strange are the threads of destiny! Not one of that group so much as dreamed that they were embarking on anything but a five weeks’ camping trip.)
[Footnote 1: Pronounced Blingam.]
CHAPTER II
THE CAMPING TRIP
A week later Morris and the boys arrived at the lumber camp on the Canyon rim, where they were to await Long Lester,—Ace in a piratical and plutocratic black Stetson sombrero, hiking boots and flannel shirt, a red bandanna at his throat, and to supplement his khaki riding breeches he had bestowed lovingly in his duffle bag the Mexican leather chaps. He also displayed the eight-inch leather belt of the cow country, and elbow length leather cuffs studded with silver nails.
Ted let it go at his second best blue overalls and heavy shoes, a green plaid gingham shirt, with a brown one to change off and straw hat. Pedro lounged gracefully about in corduroy trousers and elkskin boots, (which Norris warned him would last about a week on such rough going), and a wool jersey in the same soft tan. He took their guying good naturedly, however, and in mockery of Ace’s more picturesque accoutrement, gave a first class imitation of a motion picture director with the Senator’s son for his prize Bad Man. Norris wore his second best uniform, and all had sweaters and a change of socks and things, to say nothing of an extra pair of shoes.