While the boy was gone on this errand, Thorne rummaged the camp.  Finally he laid out on the ground about a peck of loose potatoes, miscellaneous provisions, a kettle, frying-pan, coffee-pot, tin plates, cutlery, a single sack of barley, a pick and shovel, and a coil of rope.

“That looks like a reasonable camp outfit,” remarked Thorne.  “Just throw one of those pack saddles on her,” he told Jack Pollock, who led up the white mare.  “Now you boys all retire; you mustn’t have a chance to learn from the other fellow.  Hicks, you stay.  Now pack that stuff on that horse.  I’ll time you.”

Hicks looked about him.

“Where’s the kyacks?” he demanded. [Footnote:  Kyacks—­pack sacks slung either side the pack saddle.]

“You don’t get any kyacks,” stated Thorne crisply.

“Got to pack all that stuff without ’em?”

“Sure.”

Hicks set methodically to work, gathering up the loose articles, thrusting them into sacks, lashing the sacks on the crossbuck saddle.  At the end of a half-hour, he stepped back.

“That might ride—­for a while,” said Thorne.

“I never pack without kyacks,” said Hicks.

“So I see.  Well, sit down and watch the rest of them.  Ware!” Thorne shouted.

The prospector disengaged himself from the sprawling and distant group.

“Throw those things off, and empty out those bags,” ordered Thorne.  “Now, there’s your camp outfit.  Pack it, as fast as you can.”

Ware set to work, also deliberately, it seemed.  He threw a sling, packed on his articles, and over it all drew the diamond hitch.

“Reckon that’ll travel,” he observed, stepping back.

“Good pack,” commended Thorne briefly, as he glanced at his watch.  “Eleven minutes.”

“Eleven minutes!” echoed Bob to California John, who sat near, “and the other man took thirty-five!  Impossible!  Ware didn’t hurry any; he moved, if anything, slower than the other man.”

“He didn’t make no moves twice,” pointed out California John.  “He knows how.  This no-kyack business is going to puzzle plenty of those boys who can do good, ordinary packing.”

“It’s near noon,” Thorne was saying; “we haven’t time for another of those duffers.  I’ll just call up your partner, Ware, and we’ll knock off for dinner.”

The partner did as well, or even a little better, for the watch credited him with ten and one-half minutes, whereupon he chaffed Ware hugely.  Then the pack horse was led to a patiently earned feed, while the little group of rangers, with Thorne, his sister and Bob, moved slowly toward headquarters.

“That’s all this morning, boys,” he told the waiting group as they passed it.  “This afternoon we’ll double up a bit.  The rest of you can all take a try at the packing, but at the same time we’ll see who can cut down a tree quickest and best.”

“Stop and eat lunch with us,” Amy was urging Bob.  “It’s only a cold one—­not even tea.  I didn’t want to miss the show.  So it’s no bother.”