No more ideal opportunity could have presented itself to me. It was late in November and the problem of going alone westward through the thinly settled country was a difficult one, and here, as by miracle, was its perfect solution. Moreover, as it proved, Price was a good fellow with a truly Irish sense of humor and a perfect adaptability born of long habit. And withal he was patient with my inexperience. He taught me the “diamond hitch,” and how to make a fire from next to nothing, and tea out of water that was thick and green on the surface, how to cook “spuds” and fry bacon and make gravy and bake bread in a saucepan. He tried to make a burro puncher of me, but his patience gave out there, and he declared that I’d “never be worth my salt at that until I learned to swear.” Then suiting the action to the word he would take a hand himself at this point, and fairly dancing in a frenzy of rage, would rip the air with uncouth, fluent curses, and the stubborn beasts would meekly take the ford or cease their aimless wandering and quicken their pace along the trail.
I had been working for two dollars and a half a day, the highest wages I had ever received; I soon got Price’s animals and gun and camping outfit from the pawn-shop, and, on the morning of November 20th, we set out together to cross some five or six hundred miles of the frontier from Créede to central Arizona.
Ours was rather a typical prospecting outfit, I thought, for Price had an old, gaunt Indian pony which he rode, and our blankets and cooking utensils and provisions were made fast to packing saddles on the backs of two burros, one of which was called California and the other, Beecher. I was free to ride, when I chose, another burro, an uncommonly big one, which Price called Sacramento; but I generally preferred to walk, for the pace was slow, and, besides the three which I have named, there were two little burros, California’s foals, and punching five, I soon found, was best accomplished on foot.
We camped that night far up among the head waters of the Rio Grande, and next day with much difficulty we began the toilsome journey of the Winnemonche Pass. It was hard work crossing the “divide.” For many miles the trail lay through nearly three feet of snow. There was no driving the animals ahead; we were obliged to take turns in breaking a way ourselves, and then leading the animals through. Very soon we were drenched with sweat and with the snow that melted in the heat of our bodies, and all the while we were assailed by mountain winds which seemed to cut to the marrow in one’s bones. But we always found a sheltered place in which to camp, where wood and water were plenty, and where after a good supper, we slept gloriously, huddled close together on our bed of canvas and gunny sacks, our blankets drawn up snugly over our heads.