It is easy enough to warn a fellow not to travel alone in wilderness, but quite impossible {182} to take even one's own advice. Most likely nobody else is going in that direction, or the fellow who offers his company would make a first-rate stranger. But in any case three horses will travel better than one, and by changing about one gets a longer march. That is why one generally travels with ride, pack and spare mounts. As to the pack, the load at which an average animal can keep pace with the mounted man is one hundred-and-twenty pounds, and with such a cargo should not be stopped either by swamps or rivers, bush or mountains. The weight may seem excessive for one man's supplies, but it is always worth while to carry a ration or two of grain. An advantage of the three-horse method is in the encouragement it gives them on the trail. They are quick to scratch up friendship among themselves, are never happy except in company, and running together may take their man into fellowship. [Sidenote: The art of buying] BUYING. So long as the American range was really wild an unsound horse was palmed off on the nearest townsman, or shot, or turned loose as worthless. To-day the proposal to buy a horse in any western town brings forth are amazing collection of relics, cripples, colts, curios, and criminals. The old timers will {183} not sell except to horsemen, but when they offer a horse one may buy blindfold. Except in dealing with real frontiersmen one takes a horse on approval or not at all. After the main essentials of a pure heart and four legs, I look for large eyes with no white showing, and a broad forehead. If a horse is nervous when approached, he cannot be relied upon in emergencies. If he is less than seven years of age he is not fully matured for work which needs endurance. I prefer a gelding as being less flighty, less apt to break back than a mare. I will add dollars to get a glutton, close quickly with the offer of a horse in really hard condition, refuse a rough-gaited trotter as a gift, and cannot be paid to ride a beast who bucks. As to the 'points' by which a civilised horseman judges horseflesh, they are all very nice if one has plenty of money. The prices have trebled since the turn of the century. MAKING FRIENDS. There are many little kindnesses which help to ease the labour of a horse. He has just as much pride as a man in smart equipment, has vanity enough to relish a glossy coat, to show off in company, challenge for admiration with gallant carriage of his neck and tail, and prove himself much {184} swifter than his fellows. Pet him a little and he will insist upon being fussed with. Give such dainties as sugar, apples or carrots, and he will ever be nuzzling at your pockets. His low, soft love call for greeting of a morning is well worth while for any man to earn. This is not given to the man who thinks of a horse as "it." [Sidenote: Saddling and mounting]