The Pack-Mule
AGES before the birth of the first wheelwright, some prehistoric innovator bound his burden upon a captive ass, while himself went straight-backed and free. The pack-mule, or “ sumpter mule ” of history, belongs to those times when roads were paths and weapons bows. The flight of time has done for him what it has done for these other things, so that now, except in odd corners where primitive survivals are still found, he is practically extinct.
And yet, to certain of us, perhaps because of ourselves having a primitive turn, and so a natural sympathy for such survivals, this pack-mule has interest, even charm. I, myself, am but an amateur of mules, — a man who, in a few mountain rambles, has developed an interest still lively and not yet dulled by satiety of its object. But experiences that are not long may yet be deep; and at times, when farpenetrating the primeval wilderness, alone with his little bags of food, his conscience and his mule, life is concentrated.
To the majority of the human race a pack-saddle would prove both curious and mysterious. Its form nowise announces its use, its first appearance being that of a small sawbuck entangled among old harness.
To pack, — tie your beast and load half your stuff on either side of him. If one side is heavier his back will get sore. Under the saddle place something soft, porous, and without wrinkles. The little sawbuck set astride his spine you fasten by a broad belly-band called a “cinchbelt.” The mule will not like it, but you ignore that. For rough mountaineering we use a breech-strap and breast-band. A second cinch-belt may be placed back of the first. This allows milder cinching, notwithstanding which he especially resents the second belt. You continue to ignore his resentment.
Pack freight with common sense. Neither eggs and ironware, nor paper bags and sharp-cornered boxes go well together. Nor must the load chuck and rattle. Absolute compactness, that will endure to the journey’s end, is the aim. The terrible jerking, jerking, jerking that a load gets is far greater than any mortal appreciates until he ropes a pack of assorted valuables to resist it. The load shrinks, the ropes loosen, — and then, if not speedily fixed, catastrophe.
The cinching amazes the tenderfoot. The rope, playing round the cinch-hook, is a power-multiplying device that will pull the belt as tight as you choose, regardless of the size of the mule, — and you do choose. Deaf to his protests you tighten ever tighter, until he humps up and puffs out, at which, bracing your foot against his side, you again tighten viciously. When his third rib cracks, make fast. The mule grunts, but soon goes off nibbling the herbage.
With good packing, after the first stop to retighten cinches, which, with some kinds of loads, is quite unavoidable, you go through any country whatever and so does the mule. At night all is found as it was in the morning. Not a hair has left the mule’s back; nor are there any places that hurt him when you poke them with your thumb. Still, even so, it is well to wash his back with cold water.
Sometimes, enticed by the beauty of his sleek wetness, I have been led on to bathe him all over, rejoicing in his bronzelike shine. To a mule, however, all water is an abomination; wherefore my bronze statue generally walked direct to the nearest dust-hole and therein wallowed plentifully upon his back. In some of these respects the mule is a little disappointing.
Packing, however, is but the preface; traveling is the book. As we travel, through trackless desert and boundless forest, many things are sure to happen. But some are surer than others.
The mule is a faithful beast. He climbs better than the horse, and is less likely to have his judgment biased by that of the man he travels with. Horses trust men; mules don’t. Where a mule wills to go he will go willingly; but if he wills not to go, then he will not go at all.
Naturally the mule, like the rest of us, has to get used to things before he fully adjusts himself to them. A mule new under the pack will do things. Such a mule, young, able, vigorous, flinging a succession of vaults and demivaults into space, appearing, like a dolphin from the sea, for an eye-wink above a cloud of dust and instantly disappearing head first into it again, — ah, he is indeed a spectacle! — of woe to the camper whose flour and beans he radiates into the air in recurrent bursts, of delight to the bystander; and also he himself enjoys it vastly. And he sticks right to it until the pack is no more. Then he stops, winks his gentle eyes, and walks along to where some grass is and eats it.
You come raging up, studying which death will best reward such devilishness. But to rage profiteth not: the creature is now mild as any Mary’s lamb and meek as any black slave. So you fix him up, gather your dishes from an eighty-foot circle, scrape up a little baking powder, possibly some sugar, and — but it is too sad: I cannot describe it. And its tragedy outweighs its comedy, for you are ninety miles from anywhere where anything is.
Such doings affright even his own kind. One day in the San Joaquin our Jenny bolted straight at a six-mule freight team, — leaping, bucking, and bawling as she rochetted along. Nothing but the united efforts of three men with powerful vocabularies kept that outfit together a minute.
In the mountains, afterward, this animal left her companions and followed some other wanderers away off into another basin, so that we never saw her any more. Mules do that.
Yes, the disappearing mule is distinctly an institution. He does not go where he gets to because he wants to be there, but simply to accommodate you. He prefers being where he came from, his preferences being about as strong as half-inch rope. If you use a smaller size you will have a mule-hunt on your hands in the morning.
Or you may hobble instead of tethering him; although if he aims to go he will carry the hobbles along. In our first hobbling, we tied his forefeet and waited for the struggle and panic. None came: fairly laughing at us, he bounded down the trail like a giraffe. Said my partner, “It improves his gait.”
A mule may be tethered to a dragging log or piece of brush. Once — only — I short-tethered mine to a small log, aiming to impede flight by entangling his legs. One rearward glance, one panic bound, two bumped shins, — and then a pyrotechnic display of expert heel-work. About eighty kicks in forty seconds knocked that log into little bits of bits.
A mule may be hobbled fore and aft also. And then there is the long hobble, which lets him walk but not run. Or a drag-chain may be allowed to trail from his ankle for his hind feet to step on. Or he may be enticed into a place with a narrow entrance, which you block up with poles and things. But a qualified mule will squat, like a lizard, and crawl under a pole knee-high.
In fact, there are quite a good many schemes for keeping your mule. There have to be. Some people feed him salt.
This centrifugal tendency of the mule makes it necessary that you be able to outtravel him in a day by as much as he has got the lead of you the previous night. Which if you fail to do, — give him up. For his rate steadily accelerates as he gets more and more scared to be alone in the woods, and you cannot track him after dark.
Stream-crossings make a man and his mule more intimate. There are three kinds, — swimming, fording, and walking a log. Once beyond his depth, any mule will swim. Men have tried to coax mules thus far, but they could not. Others have, singly and in groups, tried to push him in. These, too, have failed. The mule, thus approached, is as pushable as a tree.
There are, however, ways. He may be surprised into the river or he may be regularly pulled in. By the first method, you get him as close as possible to where a bank overhangs deep water. Then, suddenly, give him a mighty boost: he loses his balance and — makes a splendid splash!
In the second method you tie his leadrope to a tree on the far side of the stream, when an ingenious multiplying hitch enables just a common man to pull in the stubbornest mule.
A good mule makes no trouble at a ford, though sometimes he can’t stay on it. Mine once meandered, pack and all, right off into bottomless deeps, whence we with difficulty saved him alive. At a strong, swift ford one may ride the pack, camel fashion, his weight helping to hold the mule from being washed away.
An expert mule will walk a moderately small log over whatever is below it. What that is does not interest him. One time I led an unladen mule over a bridge of eight-inch poles. To his mind this was a case for log-walking. Selecting the outermost pole, he walked half over when he slipped off. He was swept under the bridge and far down stream before he could scramble out. Another time, with his pack on, he walked to the centre of an eighty-foot log, — round, smooth, and without bark, — over a torrent, then bunched his feet and, turning slowly round, walked back.
Another curious thing about the packmule, besides his aversion to water, is his wretched helplessness when once he has fallen. Even when he but loses his balance, he staggers foolishly about when there is ample room and firm footing. He dreads a fall like death, and when he has fallen he thinks he is dead. Far up a trailless mountain side I led my animal across the face of a chute of loose stuff. Part way over he went heels over head for six revolutions. Again, he went over a fifteenfoot precipice, turned a somersault and struck on his back, or, rather, on his pack, — unhurt. One good thing about a mule is, he is tough.
Mules are so afraid of bears that the mere smell of one will depopulate the country of mules. But of rattlesnakes a mule is so innocent that he will enrage this serpent by smelling of him in an insulting manner, whereby he gets his nose bitten.
Yes, in the course of your travels through desert and forest many things are likely to happen. It should not, however, be judged from the foregoing sketch that they are always happening, that the mule is constantly engaged in bucking, refusing rivers, and falling down mountains. On the contrary, he is generally behaving himself, tramping along behind you, or, where you yourself cannot see the trail, he will confidently lead the way.
The mule is quite all right if only you do not try to take him for a donkey or a man, but always remember that he is just mule. He has a gentle eye, a patient soul, a velvet nose, and he prefers dry grass to green.