Hour after hour we would struggle on, seeing everywhere evidences of his
skill on the trail, to find, just as endurance had reached its limit,
the arrow that meant camp and rest.
And--there was Dan Devore and his dog, Whiskers. Dan Devore was our
chief guide and outfitter, a soft voiced, bearded, big souled man,
neither very large nor very young. All soul and courage was Dan Devore,
and one of the proud moments of my life was when it was all over and he
told me I had done well. I wanted most awfully to have Dan Devore think
I had done well.
He was sitting on a stone at the time, I remember, and Whiskers, his old
Airedale, had his head on Dan's knee. All of his thirteen years,
Whiskers had wandered through the mountains with Dan Devore, always
within call. To see Dan was to see Whiskers; to see Whiskers was to see
Dan.
He slept on Dan's tarp bed at night, and in the daytime led our long and
winding procession. Indomitable spirit that he was, he traveled three
miles to our one, saved us from the furious onslaughts of many a marmot
and mountain-squirrel, and, in the absence of fresh meat, ate his salt
pork and scraps with the zest of a hungry traveler.
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