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On the other hand, those on the upper part of the life-line could steady their companions over ledges and down the steeper crevices, while the leaders helped the ones who followed by hammering footholds in the rock and at the very worst places driving in picket-pins to hold the extra ropes brought down for the purpose. Still, Deep Cañon was Deep Cañon the ladder it offered was a ladder of Titans.
He set the lantern over in the wagon bed on top of what seemed to be a heap of empty oat sacks, while he overhauled the load. It included three coils of rope of a hundred feet each, a keg of railroad spikes, two dozen picket-pins, two heavy hammers, a pick and shovel, and a crowbar. The last three articles had not been ordered by Blake.
This animal seldom fails to frighten the remainder, when away they all go with long ropes and picket-pins dangling after them. The latter sometimes act like harpoons, being thrown with such impetus as to strike and instantly kill a valuable steed from among the brother runaways. At other times the limbs of the running horses get entangled in the ropes, and they are suddenly thrown.
Tether-ropes should be so attached to the neck of the animal as not to slip and choke him, and the picket-pins never be left on the ropes except when in the ground, as, in the event of a stampede, they are very likely to swing around and injure the animals.
Poor Zephyr! he felt the degradation of the ignominious, heartbreaking service they were subjected to almost as keenly as his master; and not only that, but he had to carry a small arsenal of stores and implements of various kinds: the holsters stuffed with his master's linen and underclothing and the greatcoat rolled above, the stable suit, blouse, and overalls, and the sack containing brushes, currycomb, and other articles of equine toilet behind the saddle, the haversack with rations slung at his side, to say nothing of such trifles as side-lines and picket-pins, the watering bucket and the wooden basin.
He swung one of the other bundles on his back, under the level. The third, which was made up of railroad spikes and picket-pins, he sent rolling down the steep slope, tied to one end of the rope. He had driven a spike into a crevice of the rock. Hooking the other end of the rope over its head with an open loop, he grasped the line and started to walk down the gorge bottom.
More than a thousand horses were dashing madly over the prairie, their rage and fright increased at every jump by the lariats and picket-pins which they had pulled up, and which lashed them like so many whips. After desperate exertions by the troops, the majority were recovered from thirty to fifty miles distant; nearly a hundred, however, were absolutely lost and never seen again.
Also a mess pan of heavy tin or wrought iron for mixing bread and other culinary purposes; knives, forks, and spoons; an extra camp kettle; tin or gutta percha bucket for water wood, being liable to shrink and fall to pieces, is not deemed suitable; an axe, hatchet, and spade will also be needed, with a mallet for driving picket-pins.
It was sold to our boys in pint cups, and as the weather was very cold we warmed the beer by putting the ends of our picket-pins heated red-hot into the cups. The result was one of the biggest beer jollifications I ever had the misfortune to attend.
Even the horses of the officers and the mules of the supply-train were infected by something that seemed impending; they grew restless, stamped the earth, and vainly essayed to stampede, but were prevented by their hobbles and picket-pins.
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