The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 21, 1901, Page 3

THE SUNDAY CALL. e e i HYRE is a man up in the Yosemits who has been training mules for thirty-five years. He says that training m profitable business, too. And if 3 listen to hie figures you will think lfke- wise. For hlthough these 400 beasts upon whom he depends for a livelihood work only three months in the year, they earn in those three months anywhere iIn the neighborhood of $1200 a day. Now if- they earn $1200 a da for three months, or ninety days, it appears that their total earnings will be $108,000, which is rather 2 neat income for mules. Half of them are horses, but it's all the same thing. For the horses do a mule's work. They are the beasts that do the trajling in the Yosemite, and they are kept s0o busy during the tourist season that they can well afford to loaf during the long months when the Yosemite is Jeft to the hotel-keepers and the stage drivers and the guides. George Kenney went to that country thirty-five years ago, when he was a youngster of only 15. He worked in the gile train that belonged to Washburn and McReady in the first years of his liv- ing there, but he had too many ideas of his own to be satisfied with working for anybody very long. He was getting used to the business of tralling by that time and he wanted to keep on with it. He saw a future ahead in the trailing bu s Visitors to the wonder country were growing more and more numerous. In time, he argued, they would ceme in crowds, they would be there by tie hun- dreds and the business of carrying them on the long, steep trafls whither their un- quenchable curiosity was always leading them would be a business that would take all of one man’s time to attend to. Besides all that, he liked the brutes and he had a knack with them, too. They took kindly enough to the steep places when he was driving them, and they didn’t get used up as soon as with other people. He knew how to save thelr strength. He knew how to teach them to do this for themselves and to look out for the risky places themselves, no matter who was on their backs. He hunted up a partner. was Coffman. That partner Together they have been in the business ever since 1880. Thousands and thousands of people have trailed on the animals that belong to that firm. They are the only ones to trall on, for the firm had the concession, which glves them the monopoly, with the re- striction that they do not charge an un- due price for the use of animals. not undue price is $3 per day. The trips all take about a day, for they are made very slowly, very carefully. As you look up from the floor of the valley at the perpendicular walls on every side you feel that it would be impossible to reach the dizzy height above. yourself on the back of an animal In such a vlace looks like sheer foolhardiness. It’s no use to cling to your qualms, how- ever, for you goon find that everybody takes the tralls, and you are strictly not in it if you don’t. It is this prevailing fashion, this social compulsion put upon trailing, that has made such a big suc- cess of the business. Everybody has to trail, whether he is afraid or not, whether he is used to horses or not. And, as a matter of fact, there has never been an accldent with Xenney's mules in all these thirty odd years. There are five main tralls in the Yo- semite—Eagle Peak trall, Clouds’ Rest, Vernal and Nevada Falls, Glacier Point and Dewey. : You can’t really see the Yo- cemite unless you see it from every one of these, for the views shift, like those of a quick stereopticon, and all of the im- pressions are different. Eagle Peak, the highest, is a good deal over 4000 feet. ‘When the traveler starts out he fancles that he can’t make the trail if he is not a horseman. “That don’t matter,” Kenney always re- assures him. ‘‘Most likely you'll do better than the people who are up to too many fancy tricks of riding. Sometimes that kind of folks gets into trouble on these roads, but no tenderfoot ever does if he sits still and lets the horse run the busi- ness. “I'll tell you the secret of having no ac- cidents,” he sald the other day. “It all comes of using picked and trained moun- tain horses. I never use any other kind. “I wouldn't take a plain-bred horse for the work. They never can learn the busi- ness and learn it well. I want mountain- raised horses for this business—horses that are used to feeling loose bowlders slip under their feet and to looking over edges that would make other animals diz- zy, and to plodding up grades that would use up all the wind of any untrained horse. y L. o T ems TRase £ Rocrm ro MEVAOA FHiey T200m ox varcey & “All our animals are gentle and well broken before we buy them. We see to that all right. First thing I do with a new horse is to take it into the valley and start it on the easiest trail. T have it work up to the hardest one by degrees, letting the guides test the enduring quali- ties with great care. This testing process takes from one to three weeks. We don't feel sure of any animal before that, and we have to know them through and through before we turn them over to in- experienced riders. : “After testing it generally turns out that only half of the animals are fit for the work. The rest are discarded—too slippery of foot, too weak in endurance or too skittish. An average of half that we try are fit to be kept. “The chosen half are then put to work in dead earnest. They must be thorough- ly taught their business. This training process is carried on, by the way, In the nine off months of the year, and it takes up a great part of the time, so you see I don’t have much chance to idie. “Every year there have to be new ani- mals bought, because the old ones are now and then giving out, and also be- cause the business is all the time or a big increase. So we hold a school for them and they are well educated horses and mules before we let them graduate. Day after day the newly chosen ones are taken out to the trails and put through their paces. Practice makes them per- fect. Before they are ready for the use of strangers they know every step of every one of the five trails, and there is no possibility of their making a mis- step. They learn, too, how to save them- selves. This comes only with experience. In the first place—in fact, for the first vear or two of training—the animals show a great inclination to hurry. It is their impulse to try to reach the top as soon as possible. If the top meant rest for them this might do, but for their hard lives, where reaching their goal means only to turn back and retrace their path, they must learn to economizewtheir strength. We find them doing this after a year or.two of the work. Then you will find them wise horses; they will start out on the trail slowly, as if weary, as it every step were their last; they will be breath- ing hard, puffing; and when they finally reach the top they will surprise the anxlous tourists on thelr packs by start- ing back in the best of spirits, looking fresher than when they began the day. “You . notice that I have both horses and mules. That is for the purpose of pleasing everybody. There is an old theory that mules are the more sure-foot- ed. For myself, I don’t believe it. I'd rather have a horse any time. It is just as sure-footed and far less vexing to ride. “That Is, a mountain-raised horse, which is the only kind we ever buy. As I sald, there’s no use getting one which has been raised on the plains. It has never been used to climbing. We buy the mountain animals and we have to pay more for them, but they are a good deal more than worth the difference. “It depends altogether on the beasts how long they will wear on the tralls. I have some now that have been at it for ten and twelve seasons and are of the best now. Others, started at the same time, gave out long ago. Horses average mors years’ wear than mules.— Everybody who trails rides astride. That is one of Kenney's rules and every= body who breaks it does so at her own risk. Kenney believes that accidents are impossible to any one riding astride, but he has a dread of side saddles. Now and then some obstinately modest lady has in- sisted upon the side saddle, and he has produced one, the only one, that he has, which is a historical affair dating back to the days of '5L As a rule, the mules are given to men and the horses to women. Mules are bet- ter on heavy loads. When Ke§ney made mention of this fact, he bethought him of a story concerning a heavyweight. “Years ago we had a white mare named Dolly Varden,” he said. “She made a reputation for herself as a first- class trail animal and for a while there were half a dozen tourists a day asking for her. I wanted to please them all, so Guring the rush time I had to name sev- eral horses in my train Dolly Varden. As long as they were all white it worked all right. “One day a strapping, blg man came up here; must have weighed 250 easy. He wanted Dolly Varden—said his friend McKay had told him to ride no other. Now the original Dolly Varden was not good at heavy loads, nor were any of her white namesakes. I decided to take a chance on his not having been told the color of McKay's favorite. “One of my guides was standing with an old iron gray truck horse. The ani- mal had long ago given up trailing and had been hauling rocks in the valley. lc was the only beast I knew of that could manage the load In view. ** ‘Certainly, you shall have Dolly, sir,” Tsald and I called the guide. ‘Here, Mike, I sald, ‘take Dolly Varden there and saddle her up for this gentleman. He's a friend of McKay's. “Jumbo was the brute’s real name, but neither he nor Mike ever told the truth. Mike was wise all rignt. He and Mc- Kay’s friend started up the trail. “In the evening the big man came to my desk. He looked tired. “‘I say. Kenney,” ke sald, ‘the brute did fairly weil, but between you and me I don't think McKay is much of a judge of horseflesh.” ™ The harness of the animals is carefully arranged for the climbing. There are forward and rear girths, which prevent the saddle slipping either way. Other- wise it would be bard to stay on the backs of the horses in the steepest parts of the trails. ‘With small parties one guide is sent out to look after saddles as well as to show the way—with larger parties it is custom- ary to send one guide to lead and another to foliow. During the Christian En-~ deavor _convention there were such crowds for six days that all the horses ob- tainable were in constant use. As many as 13 people were sent out In a single party on the long trail and a guide was allowed for every ten. Even then thers was not a single accident, not so much as the least trouble with girths or cinches. Kenney says they made a funny sight. “Some had been told that the heat on the tralls was oppressive, others that the cold in the snow-topped mountains was bit- ter, so the lot of them started out in the greatest collection of costumes you ever saw. Some were bundled In furs. Others werea dressed in the thinnest summer fab- rics and carried Japanese umbrellas. My guides wear a sort of Mexican riding cos- tumes, so the whole string looked like some sort of a carnival parade.” Kenney's mules and horses ars not only trained to trail work, but many of them have specialties besides. One old mule named Pinto is always given to the kodak flends. He has been used to this par- ticular line of work for years and there fsn't a peint from which a plicture can be taken to_ advantage that Pinto doesn't know. He can get into difficult places as no other animal can. Moreover he stands stock still while the picture is be- ing taken and moves at the pressing of the button. Pinto won't last forever, Kenney sa: And then what will the kodak flends do?