Mule trail

“ Driving across the desert on a dark night is confusing to the most observant wayfarer. On either side, beyond the light of the car, illusory forest stands for mile upon mile. Up hill or down or across the level it is the same—a narrow, winding trail through dimly seen woods. The most familiar road grows strange; the miles are longer; you drive through mystery and silence and the world around you is a formless void.
Dawn and a gorgeous sunrise painted out the woods and revealed barren hilltops which Casey did not know. ”

“ You see at one time I was in the habit of making long monotonous journeys, and they were often exhausting, and,” he added, becoming wearied as if at the recollection, “always dreadfully tiresome. As the trail was sometimes very uncertain and dangerous, I rode a very surefooted mule that could go anywhere where there was space big enough to set her small hoofs upon. One night I was coming down the slope of a mountain towards a narrow valley and river that were crossed by an old, abandoned flume, of which nothing was now left but the upright trestle-work and long horizontal string-piece. ”

“ Have you ever ridden a mule? If not, you will learn how at the cañon, for only on muleback can travelers easily make the trip down and up the trail. Walking is all right going down, but the climb coming back will tire out the strongest hiker: hence the mule, or burro, long as to ears, long as to memory, and "sad as to his songs."
Of the visitors, fat and lean, tall and short, old and young, to each is assigned a mule of the right size and disposition, together with a khaki riding-suit, which fits more or less, all surmounted by hats that are useful rather than ornamental. ”

“ A GOOD riding mule, when you can get him, and provided you intend to use him only for trail travel in the mountains, is about the best proposition. A mule is more sure-footed than a horse, and can subsist where a horse would starve. On the other hand he is not much good off a walk; never acquires the horse's interest in getting around stubborn stock, and is apt to be mean. None of these objections, however much they may influence your decision as to saddle animals, will have any weight against a pack beast. ”

“ There the monkeys and parrots furnished the tropical atmosphere, assisted somewhat by innumerable dead mules along the trail. Vultures sat in every tree waiting for more things to happen. The trail was of the consistency of very thick mud. In this mud the first mule had naturally left his tracks; the next mules trod carefully in the first mule's footprints, and all subsequent mules did likewise. ”

“ In suddenly calling a halt on the trail where it was so narrow that the riders’ legs on the Cañon side were sheer over the edge, many of the mules had turned a sharp projecting cliff and were out of sight, while the rest were still crawling down the trail upon the upper side of the bluff. At the very moment when the halt was ordered Julie’s mule was about to turn the corner, and the wise little beast instantly obeyed the command. ”

“ In the dark a horse or mule will smell out the trail where other horses and mules have passed. The mule has been supposed to have a better nose than the horse, for trails and for water—and for Indians. In the camps of emigrants and trappers and other overland travelers, of the old days, the mules would smell approaching Indians and give the alarm. ”

“ A new trail must be cut around it. A little farther on, where the valley wall steepens and one may look down a thousand feet of slope to the bed of a mountain torrent, a patch of trail has become soaked with water and the mules pick their way, trembling, across it. Two days from Yavero one of our mules went over the trail, and though she was finally recovered she died of her injuries the following night. After a month’s work in the forest a mule must run free for two months to recover. The packers count on losing one beast out of five for every journey into the forest. ”

“ I well knew that a mule, when alone on the plains, is one of the most docile creatures in the world, and will permit any one save an Indian to approach it without making an effort to escape; consequently, the more I thought of the matter the more singular it seemed. Returning to camp, I found old Jerry awake and on the alert, and briefly told him what I had seen, asking him if he did not think it a strange thing for the animal to do. ”

“ Anything but a mule will roam and run against trees, will lodge his pack in the boughs that hang low overhead, or, worse still, stop to eat of the branches or weeds, and grasses under foot. The patient, cunning little Mexican mule will do nothing of the sort. He would starve rather than stop to eat when on duty; and would as soon think of throwing himself down over one of the cliffs that he is familiar with as to injure or imperil the pack that has been trusted to his care, by butting against trees, or lodging under the boughs that hang above the trail. ”

“ The bush broke, causing the mule to fall back forcibly against the inner bank, with myself sandwiched between the adamantine wall of the mountain and the well-shod heels of the mule. The animal, being as much scared as myself, started up the trail at a gallop. I had saved my life but lost my mule. I have no taste for overtaking runaway mules on a steep and interminable up-grade. It is a taste which must be acquired. But then, of course, the mule would turn after his first alarm and tear down to the stable. ”

“ A man soon appeared at the gate, leading in the mule by a cord which he placed in the hands of Tête Rouge, who, being somewhat afraid of his new acquisition, tried various flatteries and blandishments to induce her to come forward. The mule, knowing that she was expected to advance, stopped short in consequence, and stood fast as a rock, looking straight forward with immovable composure. ”

“ How a laden mule can navigate such a causeway of destruction is a mystery to be explained only by people who understand mules. And I rode a mule whose mastery of the art of trail-navigation left nothing to be learned. ”

“ Erving, was obliged to leave us for the return home, taking the best saddle animal and the strongest pack mule. It was impossible to go on with the map. That morning I rode alone up a side valley until I reached a shepherd’s hut, where I could find only a broken-down, shuffling old mule, perfectly useless for our hard work.
Then there happened a piece of good luck that seems almost providential. A young man came down the trail with three pack mules loaded with llama meat. He had come from the Cotahuasi Valley the week before and knew the trail. I persuaded him to let us hire one of his mules. ”

“ He had been propelled across the plains by mules, and one of the ugly brutes had broken his right arm with one of his ever active hoofs. I asked Michael why the mule kicked him? He replied, "Charlie, I may look foolish but was not fool enough to go back and ask him." Never approach a Missouri mule from the rear, for there certainly will be trouble if you do. ”

“ If one is anxious to place himself in a situation where the hazardous and the ludicrous are combined in about equal proportions, let him get upon a vicious mule, with a snaffle bit, and try to drive her through the woods down a slope of 45 degrees. Let him have on a long rifle, a buckskin frock with long fringes, and a head of long hair. These latter appendages will be caught every moment and twitched away in small portions by the twigs, which will also whip him smartly across the face, while the large branches above thump him on the head. ”

“ Sometimes in traversing the narrow ledges cut around the sides of a precipitous trail, or crossing a narrow natural bridge spanning the frightful gorges found everywhere in the mountains, a mule will be incontinently thrown off the slippery path, and fall hundreds of feet into the yawning canyon below. ”

“ I have heard a mule-driver overwhelmed with skeptical derision because he claimed to have upset but six times in traversing a certain bit of trail not over five miles long; in charts of the mountains are marked many trails which are only "ways through,"—you will find few traces of predecessors; the same can be said of trails in the great forests where even an Indian is sometimes at fault. ”

“ They used to have mules and mule skinners instead of bull whackers down on the Santa Fe Trail, and I reckon they’ve used ’em on the Overland Trail, too. Bulls are better all ’round. They can walk as fast as a mule if they’re pushed; they can live on grazing that a mule can’t ”

“ We were in all four men with eight animals; for besides the spare horses led by Shaw and myself, an additional mule was driven along with us as a reserve in case of accident. ”

“ A hint to be quick is all he gets, and we descend. Now we were so tired that we mounted our mules on the assurance that it would rest us; but such a descent I should never care to do again. The road was steep and unfinished; the moon was under a cloud; there were precipices on each side. The step of the mule sends one upon a narrow, hard saddle, bumping one moment against the pommels, and the next on to the baggage here and there. There is a roll over a loose stone; but the clever mule, snuffing and pawing its way, nimbly puts its feet together, and slides down a slab of rock. ”

“ Shortly before dawn two hard-riding rustlers pounded up from the rear, reported all clear, and fell back again, to renew their watch far back on the trail. For three hours the herd had crossed hard ground and as it passed over a high, dividing ridge and down the eastern slope the trail-boss sighed with relief, for now dawn held no terrors for him. He had passed the eastern horizon of any keen-eyed watchers of the pillaged range. On went cattle and riders, and the paling dawn saw them following the hard bottom of a valley which led to others ahead, and kept them from dangerous sky lines. ”

“ All too soon it was time for us to start back to the South Rim, and we made a reluctant departure. It rained on us part of the way, and loosened rocks made the going perilous. Halfway down the steepest part we met half [Pg 145] a dozen loose pack mules. One of the first rules of safety for a trail without turnouts is that no loose stock must be allowed on it. My Indian horse chose that particular time and place to throw a fit of temperament, and he climbed out of the way of the wild mules by scrambling up a perpendicular rock and flattening out against the hillside. ”

“ At times the trail was so rough and rocky that it was with greatest difficulty that the mules were able to clamber up the steep elevations. On one occasion it was necessary for the mules to jump up a three-foot rock, which obstructed the trail dangerously near a five-hundred-foot drop.
“Steady, now,” cautioned the old man, helping [Pg 167] the youths unload the mules. “If we make a misstep, it will prove our finish.”
None of the explorers did, fortunately. But one of the mules was not as lucky. ”

“ Beginning at a rock slide, a mass of treacherous broken rock and shale in which he sank to his ankles at every plunging step, a faint zigzag line wandered up the southern face of the butte. He did not know that it could be mastered, but he did not have time to gain the easier trail, up which he had led his horse. Struggling up the shale slope, slipping and floundering in the treacherous footing, he flung himself on the rock ledge which slanted sharply upward. ”

“ The road, in some places, is so steep, and yet so narrow, that the mules are obliged to slide down without making any use whatever of their feet. On one side of the rider, in this situation, rises an eminence of many hundred yards; and, on the other, is an abyss of equal depth; so that, if he should give the least check to his mule, and destroy the equilibrium, both must inevitably perish. ”

“ There is in this sudden intimacy with the fellows of the clouds, the veiled lords of upper air, an awe which we feel before powers incomprehensible.
263 At last the trail ceases; overhead are cliffs no horse could climb. The guide ties the ponies, and with a stout rope clambers ahead up a smoothly sculptured parapet. We follow him and find ourselves on a bleak waste which leads to a small basin, strewn with great boulders and lesser rocks, dark and of the colour of slate. ”

“ Even though the mules were mountain-bred, the rare air of this high pass affected them and as we climbed higher, they began to halt every fifty yards for breath, with their icicled flanks heaving in distress. In a moment they would start on again of their own accord, yet sometimes in the fiercer blasts of the storm only the constant spur would keep them in the trail and headed for the pass above. ”

“ When we had crossed the Arve and the meadows on our way to Montanvert, the path grew rough and narrow, and rose abruptly through the pine forest. As its zigzags are cut on the hill side, and there is barely room for the mule and guide, and no defence towards the precipice, it may present some alarm to persons unused to mountain passes, particularly as the mule always chooses the extreme edge from its habit of carrying burthens, and its fear of striking them against the rock, which would precipitate 334 it below. ”

“ It is not that any active exertion is necessary,—that there is anything which requires doing. The traveller has before him the simple task of sitting on his mule from hour to hour, and of seeing that his knees do not get themselves jammed against the trees; but at every step the beast he rides has to drag his legs out from the deep clinging mud, and the body of the rider never knows one moment of ease. Why the mules do not die on the road, I cannot say. They live through it, and do not appear to suffer. ”

“ The most well-meaning of mules has habits which do not conduce to the happiness of his rider upon a mountain track; he will pause on a hogsback ridge of slippery cobbles in the middle of a swift stream, to gaze entranced, with pricked ears, at the distant landscape ”