When you are quite sure the kyacks weigh alike, get your companion to hang one on the pack saddle, at the same time you hook the straps of the other. If you try to do it by yourself you must leave one hanging while you pick up the other, thus running a good risk of twisting the saddle.
The Jam Hitch.
Top Packs
Your top pack you will build as the occasion demands. In general, try to make it as low as possible and to get your blankets on top where the pack rope "bites." The strap connecting the kyacks is then buckled. Over all you will throw the canvas tarpaulin that you use to sleep on. Tuck it in back and front to exclude dust. It is now ready for the pack rope.
Jam Hitch
1. The Jam Hitch.—All hitches possess one thing in common—the rope passes around the horse and through the cinch hook. The first pull is to tighten that cinch. Afterward other maneuvers are attempted. Now ordinarily the packer pulls tight his cinch, and then in the further throwing of the hitch he depends on holding his slack. It is a very difficult thing to do. With the jam hitch, however, the necessity is obviated. The beauty of it is that the rope renders freely one way—the way you are pulling—but will not give a hair the other—the direction of loosening. So you may heave up the cinch as tightly as you please, then drop the rope and go on about your packing perfectly sure that nothing is going to slip back on you.
The rope passes once around the shank of the hook, and then through the jaw (see diagram). Be sure to get it around the shank and not the curve. Simplicity itself; and yet I have seen very few packers who know of it.
The Diamond Hitch
2. The Diamond Hitch.—I suppose the diamond in one form or another is more used than any other. Its merit is its adaptability to different shapes and sizes of package—in fact it is the only hitch good for aparejo packing—its great flattening power, and the fact that it rivets the pack to the horse's sides. If you are to learn but one hitch, this will be the best for you, although certain others, as I shall explain under their proper captions, are better adapted to certain circumstances.