Alertness
So you do not get lost—barring accidents—you are safe enough. But to travel well you must add to your minor affairs the same quality, slightly diluted, perhaps, that I have endeavored to describe above. In this application it becomes thoroughness and smartness. A great many people object while camping to keeping things in trim, to getting up in the morning, to moving with expedition and precision. "Oh, what's the use in being so particular!" they grumble, "this is supposed to be a pleasure trip."
Discipline
Outside the fact that a certain amount of discipline brings efficiency, there is no doubt that a slack camp means trouble sooner or later. Where things are not picked up, something important will sooner or later be lost or left behind. Where the beginning of the day's journey hangs fire, sooner or later night will catch you in a very bad place indeed. Where men get in the habit of slouching, physically and mentally, they become in emergencies unable to summon presence of mind, and incapable of swift, effective movements. The morale is low; and exclusive of the fact that such things are an annoyance to the spirit, they may in some exceptional occasion give rise to serious trouble. Algernon is ten minutes slow in packing his horse; and Algernon gets well cursed. He is hurt as to the soul, and demands of himself aggrievedly how ten minutes can be valued so high. It is not the ten minutes as a space of time, but as a measure of incompetence. This pack train is ten minutes short of what a pack train should be; and if the leader's mind is properly constructed, he is proportionately annoyed.
Although not strictly germane to a discussion of equipments, I am tempted to hold up a horrible example.
A Horrible Example
One evening we were all sitting around a big after-dinner fire at the Forest Supervisor's summer camp in the mountains, when an outfit drifted in and made camp a few hundred yards down stream. After an interval the leader of the party came over and introduced himself.
A Horrible Example
He proved to be a youngish man, with curly hair, regular features, a good physique, and eyes handsome, but set too close together. A blue flannel shirt whose top button was unfastened, rolled back to show his neck; a handkerchief was knotted below that; in all his external appearance he leaned toward the foppish-picturesque. This was in itself harmless enough. Shortly he began to tell us things. He confided that his chief ambition was to rope a bear; he related adventures in the more southern mountains; he stated that he intended to travel up through the Minarets and over Agnew's Pass, and by way of Tuolumne. This was to consume two weeks! Finally he became more personal. He told us how President Roosevelt when on his Pacific Coast tour had spoken to him personally.
"When the train started," said he, "I ran after it as hard as I could with a lot of others, but I ran a lot faster and got ahead, so the President spoke directly to me—not to the crowd, but to me!"