Somewhat more difficult were other articles, such as cook-stoves and the like, shipped not "knocked down." A piano was one of the odd articles that went into the earliest of the Coeur d'Alene mining camps more than a score of years ago. It was packed on four mules, the piano resting on a sling of poles, which virtually bound the mules together as well as gave support to their burden, two mules going in front and two behind. When the animals became too tired to climb farther, the weight was temporarily lightened by resting the piano on forked sticks thrust up beneath the load. The strange package was taken through in safety, though at a cost of about a thousand dollars. All sorts of articles were shipped in the same fashion, and packages of glassware, cases of eggs, and many such goods customarily made the long and rough journeys in safety.
The charges were made on the weight of the package, including the case or cover in which it was shipped, and it was poor policy on the part of the shipper to pack his goods too flimsily, for the grip of the "diamond hitch" was never a sparer of things beneath it. The hardest article to pack in the mountains was quicksilver. This commodity was shipped in iron flasks, and the first thing the packer did was to unscrew the tops of these flasks and fill the remaining interior space completely with water, in order to prevent the heavy blow of the shifting liquid contents, which was distressing to the pack-horse. A flask of quicksilver weighed about ninety pounds, and it was customary to pack two flasks on each side of a horse or mule, each pair of flasks being fastened in a board frame, which gave facility for lashing all fast, and prevented the wear of the condensed weight against the back of the animal.
Wood, hay, boxes, trunks, indeed almost anything that could be imagined, were common articles of transport in the mountains, and it was at times a bit odd to see a little burro almost hidden under a couple of Saratoga trunks so big that he could neither lie down nor roll over under them. The pack-train might comprise a score or a hundred horses, and the conduct of such a train was no small matter of skill and generalship.
Oxen were often used as pack-animals, the burden frequently being lashed to the horns. An ox could carry a fifty-pound sack of flour on top of its head, though special saddles were sometimes used for ox-packing. On the overland trail to California, cows were sometimes employed as pack-animals, and were often used in harness as draft-animals. Every one knows the story of the carts and hand-barrows of the great Mormon emigration. Under the old Western conditions of transportation, is it any wonder that horse-stealing was regarded as the worst crime of the calendar?