"How many packs do you intend to take, Hugh?"
"Why," said Hugh, "I should think three will be a plenty; one to carry our beds, war sacks, and tent; one to carry our mess outfit and grub; and one to carry our fur, if we get any. The third horse will go light for part of the way, and then later we can use him to save the others. Of course, we could get along with two animals, but not so well, if we're going to bring anything back with us; and, of course, there's always a probability of that, though, on the other hand, we may not get anything at all."
"Well," said Jack, "three packs aren't much to bother with, and we ought to be able to travel fast with them."
"No," said Hugh, "three won't be much trouble, and we can get a good start every morning, if we want to."
While they had been talking, Hugh had set a saddle upright on the floor and had run a rope in front of it about where the animal's breast would come, and then brought the rope back to the side of the saddle; measuring the canvas by this, he cut off three strips, and then doubling them over he took the palm and sail needle and with waxed thread stitched the two edges together so that he had a double thickness of canvas, six or eight inches wide and long enough to reach from one side of the saddle to the other, around the animal's breast. Similar bands were cut and sewed for breeching, and then Hugh pointed out to Jack where one difficulty lies in using such aids to travel. "You have got to have the breast band so low that it will press on the breast and not on the throat, otherwise you stop your animal's wind—choke him. Again, if you have it too low, and if it isn't held up by anything from above, it's likely to drop down to the animal's knees. Probably the best way for us to do is to run a string through one edge of the band, bring it up, and pass it over the horse's neck and down through the edge on the other side. There's less danger, of course, of the breeching slipping down, because it will catch on the animal's hocks. Still, I think I'll try and see if I can find a couple of cruppers for these other saddles, and then we can tie the supports for the breeching to the crupper band, midway of where it runs back from the saddle. Really, to make good breeching we ought to have it so that it can be shortened up or lengthened out, and so that it will fit any animal that the saddle is put on. I don't see how we can get along without straps and buckles, but as we haven't got any, we'll just put on a couple of snaps, two or three inches apart. I'll go ahead and sew the breeching and the breast straps on one side, anyhow, and after we get up the animals, we can fit them."
"By the way, Hugh," said Jack, "how much grub will we want to take with us? I told Mrs. Carter that we would be gone for a couple of months; was that right?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "we'll be gone a couple of months, anyhow, I should think, maybe more, but, of course, we expect to live mostly on what we kill. We'll need coffee, sugar, bacon, and flour, and baking powder, but it seems to me that it's not worth while for us to take much of that sort of thing from here. If we're going to stop in Laramie City, we can buy all that stuff there right on the railroad, and in that case, we only need to take from here a fifty-pound sack of flour, a little bacon, and a little coffee and sugar. Maybe Mrs. Carter would bake us bread enough to last us for a few days, and that would save us wrestling with frying-pan bread for a while. I reckon she would do it, if you asked her."
"All right," replied Jack, "I'll ask her, and I bet she'll do it, too. She has always been mighty nice to me."
"Yes," said Hugh, "she's a mighty nice woman."