The distance between dreaming and doing, can, for many, be too wide a chasm to leap. It is not a matter of energy expended, as I, myself, have spent more time avoiding something I thought I wouldn't succeed in, than giving it a try. The secret is confidence.

Somewhere along the line I have developed the philosophy that I can do anything I really want, if I want it badly enough. Usually just the trying alone, with a few minor successes, gives me the nerve to continue on. Second thoughts, of course, on these statements could fill the rest of the book, so I simply ignore them. Maybe it is oversimplifying, yet this is the way I live my life.

This is why we could dream about the pack trip and start doing. Outwardly, to friends, we joined their nervous laughter about our "zany" idea. Inwardly, we passed over facts —as financial matters we knew were the truth, dismissing the thought as fiction.

It took about six months of doing to get ready for the trail. Looking back I can visualize scenes that might have come from an old silent movie. Slapstick Murray and his wacky cops mounting wild horses, un-mounting wild horses, and screwing leather straps on a pack saddle so that a north heading horse would have to travel south. The perils of my heroine wife would include a close-up of her shaking the piggy bank and saying in Gothic type, "What ever shall I use for money?"

Cash money—our first lesson learned from the past. What we couldn't make (pack saddles, hobbles, saddle bags, pack bags, chaps, or repair (old saddles, horse shoeing equipment, a gas lantern) or buy cheap (a $5 horse: Crazy Daisy) or trade (a lame pickup for two sound horses) we did without. I did try for sponsorship, but there were no suppliers who thought we would last more than two days or 20 miles, whichever came first, or that our plans were worthy enough to contribute to, in return for advertising rights. Just as well, for we did try many well known brands and found them inferior. It wouldn't have mattered if we had ended up endorsing tooth paste or soap, but I wouldn't have wanted my name linked with a shoddy make of riding boots or an overrated saddle. Any product I do mention, you can be sure that I recommend same and am not being paid to do so.

Not purposely in keeping with our old fashioned ideas, we all ended up riding saddles that had a story to tell. I know my Montana dally rig was used on the range around 1900. Bernice rode a McClellan, the cavalry saddle in use from the Civil War until 1942. Barry Jr. ended up sitting one of the greatest names in Western saddle history, a J. D. Walker Visila.