Episode 81

We were to leave town quietly, after midnight, in two or three small parties, so as not to attract attention, and meet at dawn on the "divide"overlooking Mono Lake, eight or nine miles distant.We were to make no noise after starting, and not speak above a whisper under any circumstances.It was believed that for once Whiteman's presence was unknown in the town and his expedition unsuspected.Our conclave broke up at nine o'clock, and we set about our preparation diligently and with profound secrecy.At eleven o'clock we saddled our horses, hitched them with their long riatas (or lassos), and then brought out a side of bacon, a sack of beans, a small sack of coffee, some sugar, a hundred pounds of flour in sacks, some tin cups and a coffee pot, frying pan and some few other necessary articles.All these things were "packed" on the back of a led horse--and whoever has not been taught, by a Spanish adept, to pack an animal, let him never hope to do the thing by natural smartness.That is impossible.Higbie had had some experience, but was not perfect.He put on the pack saddle (a thing like a saw-buck), piled the property on it and then wound a rope all over and about it and under it, "every which way," taking a hitch in it every now and then, and occasionally surging back on it till the horse's sides sunk in and he gasped for breath--but every time the lashings grew tight in one place they loosened in another.

We never did get the load tight all over, but we got it so that it would do, after a fashion, and then we started, in single file, close order, and without a word.It was a dark night.We kept the middle of the road, and proceeded in a slow walk past the rows of cabins, and whenever a miner came to his door I trembled for fear the light would shine on us an excite curiosity.But nothing happened.We began the long winding ascent of the canyon, toward the "divide," and presently the cabins began to grow infrequent, and the intervals between them wider and wider, and then I…