‘Good-bye to the groceries’
Some men remove packs in the middle of the day, and halt for lunch. This I consider a mistake, and a waste of time. An early camp, say at four o’clock, is better both for horses and men.
In choosing your camp consider first these points: water, food, fuel, and shelter from wind and from the sight of such game as may be in the neighbourhood. As to this last point, it is as well not to allow fires to be lighted or wood chopped until a careful survey of the neighbourhood has been made from some adjacent height, especially if the camp has been pitched in the district which you mean to hunt. Not long since my friends and myself had the mortification of seeing the largest band of sheep I ever saw move away while we were stalking them, not because they detected us, but because they could hear the ringing strokes of our men’s axes in the valley below. A camp without feed for the horses is the worst of all camps, and luckily occurs very rarely. If there is any likelihood of such camps being unavoidable, it may be necessary to carry grain for the horses, although many ‘cayuses’ will not at first eat it, and frequently when they do eat it suffer from lampas and other ailments consequent upon a sudden change of diet. Lancing the bars of a horse’s mouth with a sharp penknife will procure relief from lampas, which is probably the commonest complaint amongst pack ponies. In camping in America, beware of camping near burnt timber—that is to say, so near as to be in danger from a falling tree, a constantly recurring risk where huge trunks are burnt almost through, and high winds are common.
Whatever you do, do not camp on old Indian camping grounds. Indians rarely leave anything worth having in a camp, but they do leave things worth avoiding. Again, don’t be tempted to use an old horse-blanket to put over your feet on a very cold night. Men will tell you that the insects which infest animals won’t touch men. I remember one unfortunate party which owned a horse suffering from the third plague of Egypt, and owing to a careless use of one of that horse’s blankets the plague passed on to the horse’s rider. The woodticks which infest the woods in early spring are as omnivorous as the insects before alluded to. When once these creatures have buried their heads in your flesh they should be removed with care. If you leave their heads in, an ugly sore may be the result.
Arrived in camp, let it be your first care to see that the horses are watered, hobbled and turned into the best ‘feed’ in the neighbourhood; see that the packs are secured against rain, and that an ample supply of wood is cut for use during the night. In dealing with Indians don’t do too much for yourself, however competent and willing you may be. The majority of Indians are very apt to encourage a man willing to help himself, by allowing him to do all the work.
Give men and horses a complete rest every Sunday, and utilise part of the day for looking through and taking stock of your stores.
There is still another list of necessaries to be added to those already given, but luckily it is only a very short one. As illness may possibly visit the hunter’s camp, he must be prepared for it, and a few simple remedies for the ills most likely to befall him are worth providing.
Quinine for low fevers, aperient medicine of some kind (podophyllin pills for choice), and an ounce of laudanum in case of diarrhœa or colic, together with a few mustard plaisters, a roll of india-rubber bandaging, and some diachylon plaister for cuts, have always proved a sufficient medical outfit for any party to which I have belonged.
The quinine, if employed as a preventive measure, may be taken in three-grain doses, but in case you are too late to ward fever off double the dose.