What a Horse Should Carry
Sore Backs
A pack horse can carry two hundred pounds—not more. Of course more can be piled on him, and he will stand up under it, but on a long trip he will deteriorate. Greater weights are carried only in text books, in camp-fire lies, and where a regular pack route permits of grain feeding. A good animal, with care, will take two hundred successfully enough, but I personally always pack much lighter. Feed costs nothing, so it is every bit as cheap to take three horses as two. The only expense is the slight bother of packing an extra animal. In return you can travel farther and more steadily, the chances of sore backs are minimized, your animals keep fat and strong, and in case one meets with an accident, you can still save all your effects on the other. For the last three years I have made it a practice to pack only about a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five pounds when off for a very long trip. My animals have always come out fat and hearty, sometimes in marked contrast to those of my companions, and I have not had a single case of sore back.
The latter are best treated by Bickmore's Gall Cure. Its use does not interfere in the least with packing; and I have never seen a case it did not cure inside ten days or two weeks if applied at the beginning of the trouble.
How Far a Horse Should Travel
In the mountains and on grass-feed twenty miles a day is big travel. If you push more than that you are living beyond your income. It is much better, if you are moving every day, to confine yourself to jaunts of from twelve to fifteen miles on an average. Then if necessity arises, you have something to fall back on, and are able to make a forced march.
Mountain Travel
The distance may seem very short to you if you have never traveled in the mountains; but as a matter of fact you will probably find it quite sufficient, both in length of time and in variety of scenery. To cover it you will travel steadily for from six to eight hours; and in the diversity of country will be interested every step of the way. Indeed so varied will be the details that it will probably be difficult to believe you have made so small a mileage, until you stop to reflect that, climbing and resting, no horse can go faster than two or two and one-half miles an hour.
Desert Travel
On the desert or the plains the length of your journey must depend entirely on the sort of feed you can get. Thirty miles a day for a long period is all a fed-horse can do, while twenty is plenty enough for an animal depending on his own foraging. Longer rides are not to be considered in the course of regular travel. I once did one hundred and eighty miles in two days—and then took a rest.