The word "pack" itself is a joy to the outdoor man, for it is only outdoor men who use the word pack for carry, and who call a bundle or load a pack. The reason for this is that the real wilderness man, explorer, prospector, hunter, trapper or scout, packs all his duffel into a bundle which he carries on his back, in two small saddle-bags which are carried by his husky dogs, or a number of well-balanced bundles which are lashed on the pack saddle with a diamond hitch over the back of a pack horse.
You see we have pack dogs, pack horses and pack animals, pack saddles and packers, as well as the packs themselves, which the packers pack and these animals pack on their backs, or which the man himself packs on his own back. Then we also have the pack rat, but the pack rat does not carry things with our consent. The pack rat comes flippity-flop, hopping over the ground from the old hermit, Bill Jones's, packing with him Bill Jones's false teeth which he has abstracted from the tin cup of water at the head of Bill Jones's bunk. The pack rat deposits the teeth at the head of your cot, then deftly picking up your watch, the rat packs it back to Bill Jones's cot and drops it in the tin cup of water, where it soaks until morning.
It is easy to see that however funny the pack rat may be, and however useful he might be to the Sunday comic paper, the rat's humor is not appreciated by the campers in the Rocky Mountains, where it is called a pack rat from its habit of carrying things. Thus it is that in a newly settled country the word "carry" is almost forgotten; one "packs" a letter to the post box, or packs a horse to water, or packs a box of candy to his best girl, or a pail of water from the spring.
Man Packing
When you, my good reader, get the pack adjusted on your back and the tump line across your forehead ([Fig. 226]), remember that you are being initiated into the great fraternity of outdoor people. But no matter how tough or rough you may appear to the casual observer, your roughness is only apparent; a boy or man of refinement carries that refinement inside of him wherever he goes; at the same time when one is carrying a pack on one's back and a tump line on one's forehead ([Fig. 226½]), or a canoe on one's head, even though a lady should be met on the trail it would not be necessary for one to take off one's hat, for even a foolish society woman would not expect a man to doff the canoe he might be carrying on his head. Under all circumstances use common sense; that is the rule of the wilderness and also of real culture.
The most important thing that you must learn on the trail is not to fret and fume over trifles, and even if your load is heavy and irksome, even though the shoulder straps chafe and the tump line makes your neck ache
Don't Fight Your Pack
When we speak of "fighting the pack" we mean fighting the load; that does not mean getting one's load up against a tree and punching it with one's fists or "kicking the stuffings out of it," but it means complaining and fretting because the load is uncomfortable.
There are two kinds of "packs"—the pack that you carry day after day on a long hike, and the pack that you carry when on a canoe trip and you are compelled to leave the water and carry your canoe and duffel overland around some bad rapids or falls. The first-named pack should be as light as possible, say between 30 and 40 pounds, for on a long tramp every pound counts, because you know that you must carry it as long as you keep going, and there is no relief in sight except when you stop for your meals or to camp at night. But the last-named pack, the