Now, as to the weight a mule can pack.  I have seen the Delaware Indians, with all their effects packed on mules, going out on a buffalo hunt.  I have seen the Potawatamies, the Kickapoos, the Pawnees, the Cheyennes, Pi-Ute, Sioux, Arapahoes, and indeed almost every tribe that use mules, pack them to the very extent of their strength, and never yet saw the mule that could pack what Mr. Skinner asserts.  More than that, I assert here that you cannot find a mule that will pack even four hundred pounds, and keep his condition sixty days.  Eight hundred pounds, Mr. Skinner, is a trying weight for a horse to drag any distance.  What, then, must we think of it on the back of a mule?  The officers of our quartermasters’ department, who have been out on the plains, understand this matter perfectly.  Any of these gentlemen will tell you that there is not a pack train of fifty mules in existence, that can pack on an average for forty days, three hundred pounds to the animal.

I will now give you the experience of some of the best mule packers in the country, in order to show that what has been written in regard to the mule’s strength is calculated to mislead the reader.  In 1856, William Anderson, a man whom I know well, packed from the City of Del Norte to Chihuahua and Durango, in Mexico, a distance of five hundred miles or thereabout.  Anderson and a man of the name of Frank Roberts had charge of the pack train.  They had seventy-five mules, and used to pack boxes of dry goods, bales, and even barrels.  They had two Mexican drivers, and travelled about fifteen miles a day, at most, though they took the very best of care of their animals.  Now, the very most it was possible for any mule in this train to get along with was two hundred and seventy-five pounds.  More than this, they did not have over twenty-five mules out of the whole number that could pack two hundred and fifty pounds, the average weight to the whole train being a little less than two hundred pounds.  To make this fifteen miles a day, they had to make two drives, letting the animals stop to feed whenever they had made seven or eight miles.

In 1858, this same Anderson packed for the expedition sent after the Snake Indians.  His train consisted of some two hundred and fifty or three hundred mules.  They packed from Cordelaine Mission to Walla Walla, in Oregon.  The animals were of a very superior kind, selected for the purpose of packing out of a very large lot.  Some of the very best of these mules were packed with three hundred pounds, but at the end of two weeks gave out completely.

In 1859, this same Anderson packed for a gentleman of the name of David Reese, living at the Dalles, in Portland, Oregon.  His train consisted of fifty mules, in good average condition, many of them weighing nine hundred and fifty pounds, and from thirteen to fourteen hands high.  His average packing was two hundred and fifty pounds.  The distance was three hundred miles, and it occupied forty days in