A Woman Tenderfoot | Page 7

extra jacket and a
slicker. (A rain-coat is most important. I use a small size of the New
York mounted policemen's mackintosh, made by Goodyear. It opens
front and back and has a protecting cape for the hands.) The saddle has

also small pommel bags in which are matches, compass, leather thongs,
knife and a whistle (this last in case I get lost), and there are rings and
strings in which other bundles such as lunch can be attached while on
the march. A horsehair army saddle blanket saves the animal's back.
Nimrod's saddle is exactly like mine, only with longer and larger
stirrups.
[Illustration: I. SADDLE COVER FOR WET WEATHER. Designed
by A.A. Anderson.]
[Illustration: II. POLICEMAN'S EQUESTRIAN RAIN COAT.]
You have now your personal things for eating, sleeping and riding. It
remains but to clothe yourself and you are ready to start. Provide
yourself with two or three champagne baskets covered with brown
waterproof canvas, with stout handles at each end and two leather
straps going round the basket to buckle the lid down, and a stronger
strap going lengthwise over all. Or if you do not mind a little more
expense, telescopes made of leatheroid, about 22 inches long, 11 inches
wide and 9 inches deep, with the lower corners rounded so they will not
stick into the horse, and fitted with straps and handles, make the ideal
travelling case; for they can be shipped from place to place on the
railroad and can be packed, one on each side of a horse. They are much
to be preferred to the usual Klondike bag for convenience in packing
and unpacking one's things and in protecting them.
It is hardly necessary to say that clothes have to be kept down to the
limit of comfort. Into the telescopes or baskets should go warm flannels,
extra pair of heavy boots, several flannel shirt waists, extra riding habit
and bloomers, fancy neck ribbons and a belt or two--for why look
worse than your best at any time?--a long warm cloak and a chamois
jacket for cold weather, snow overshoes, warm gloves and mittens too,
and some woollen stockings. Be sure you take flannels. This is the
advice of one who never wears them at any other time. A veil or two is
very useful, as the wind is often high and biting, and I was much
annoyed with wisps of hair around my eyes, and also with my hair
coming down while on horseback, until I hit upon the device of tying a
brown liberty silk veil over the hair and partially over the ears before

putting on a sombrero. This veil was not at all unbecoming, being the
same color as my hair, and it served the double purpose of keeping
unruly locks in order and keeping my ears warm. A hair net is also
useful.
Then you must not forget a rubber bath tub, a rubber wash basin,
sponge, towels, soap, and toilet articles generally, including camphor
ice for chapped lips and pennyroyal vaseline salve for insect bites. A
brown linen case is invaluable to hold all these toilet necessaries, so
that you can find them quickly. A sewing kit should be supplied, a flask
of whiskey, and a small "first-aid" outfit; a bottle of Perry Davis pain
killer or Pond's extract; but no more bottles than must be, as they are
almost sure to be broken. In your husband's box, ammunition takes the
place of toilet articles. I shall pass over the guns with the bare mention
that I use a 30.30 Winchester, smokeless. For railroad purposes all this
outfit for two goes into two trunks and a box--one trunk for all the
bedding and night things: the other for all the clothing, guns,
ammunition, eating things, and incidentals. The box holds the saddles,
bridles, and horse things.
In a pack train, the bed-rolls, weighing about fifty pounds each, go on
either side of one horse, and the telescopes on each side of another
horse--in both cases not a full load, and leaving room on the top of the
pack for a tent and other camp things. The saddles, of course, go on the
saddle horses. The cost of such an outfit, in New York, is about two
hundred dollars each; but it lasts for years and brings you in large
returns in health and consequent happiness.
I am willing to wager my horsehair rope (specially designed for
keeping off snakes) that a summer in the Rockies would enable you to
cheat time of at least two years, and you would come home and join me
in the ranks of converts from the usual summer sort of thing. Will you
try it? If you do, how you will pity your unfortunate friends who have
never known what it is