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The Out Trail
From "Roughing it with the Men" to "Below the Border in Wartime" Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Out Trail features seven tales from her adventures in the West from fishing at Puget Sound to hiking the Bright Angel trail at the Grand Canyon. Though she was best known at the time for her mystery novels, Rinehart's travel writing, starting with her 1915 travels to the then young Glacier National Park, offers observations and insights into the fun and difficulties of early twentieth-century travel and her fellow travelers with humor and clarity of detail that makes them vivid for today's travelers.
- GenresNonfictionMemoirTravel
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1923
33 people want to read
About the author
Mary Roberts Rinehart
547 books420 followersMysteries of the well-known American writer Mary Roberts Rinehart include
The Circular Staircase
(1908) and
The Door
(1930).
People often called this prolific author the American version of Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it," though the exact phrase doesn't appear in her works, and she invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing.
Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues, and special articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies, such as The Bat (1926), The Bat Whispers (1930), and The Bat (1959). Critics most appreciated her murder mysteries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ro...
People often called this prolific author the American version of Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it," though the exact phrase doesn't appear in her works, and she invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing.
Rinehart wrote hundreds of short stories, poems, travelogues, and special articles. Many of her books and plays were adapted for movies, such as The Bat (1926), The Bat Whispers (1930), and The Bat (1959). Critics most appreciated her murder mysteries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ro...
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 27, 2025
“Generally speaking, both sexes are at their best or their worst on the trail. The wilderness is no half-way ground. Either one belongs or one does not, and one person of either sex who does not can ruin a trip, spread dissension in camp, lose the cook, and fill otherwise peaceful individuals with murderous thoughts.” — Mary Roberts Rinehart
Famous today for her tremendous contribution to the mystery genre, the woman most often identified with the “Had I but Known” foreshadowing, and old-fashioned heroines whose families had once been wealthy and part of high-society, but who had fallen on hard financial times, only to become involved in murder mysteries which were as intricately plotted as they were slowly evolving and atmospheric of time and place, there was another side to Rinehart, one that was funny and adventurous and self-deprecating.
The stories in The Out Trail paint a portrait of that side of Rinehart in a wonderful way. I do wish that the publisher had been a bit more careful in transferring these wonderful stories, because typos do occasionally — but not often — creep into these stories that likely weren’t in there originally. It is ticky-tack stuff however, and barely a blip on the radar. The stories are splendid, and here is an overview of them :
ROUGHING IT WITH THE MEN :
After listing her extensive resumé of rough travels and adventures, some more than a little dangerous, Rinehart states:
“I submit modestly that while there is nothing heroic about this record, I am entitled to a silver cup for variety and endurance. And the men who have accompanied me are entitled to a gold one.”
There is much humor laced within this particular piece, some of it self-deprecating, some of it wickedly biting.
Rinehart pretends on every excursion to be oblivious in regard to the making of hot biscuits on the trail, lest she be lassoed into doing so constantly, as she’s witnessed of others, and be unable to enjoy the other adventures of the party.
One thing that becomes very clear is that Rinehart, though independent and successful, was no radical feminist man-hater. She would likely be appalled at the modern radicalization of feminism which is so filled with hostility and unreasonableness. She seems much more likely to have agreed with Catherine Deneuve and the other 100 women who wrote that open letter slamming the MeToo movement, alluding to it being steeped in misandry.
Before expounding on the reasons men often go off alone on these rugged journeys, rather than bring the women they so miss, which is quite interesting, she states:
“Everything else being equal, superior physical strength always gives man the advantage.”
Rinehart is in no way slighting her own sex here, she applauds them in fact, but she was able and willing to make an honest observation based on her many times on the trail. It is very refreshing.
A 17 page story.
THE DUDE RANCH :
Wonderful reminiscences of the Bighorn Wyoming ranch. Rinehart once again is a hoot, her observations wonderful. So was she, as in the time she used pure ingenuity to create costume for many in her family for a shindig.
She expounds on the Dude Ranch, and why some will always be considered dudes, and the reason. She tells of the banker who formed a tender bond with a horse named Sowbelly, and is at her most tongue-in-cheek when talking about the fishing:
“Now, any fisherman will know that the only way to catch trout is to surprise them. To startle no birds. To frighten no butterflies. To stalk the stream like an Indian stalking his prey. Crawling, creeping, hiding, the true fisherman at last takes up his stand behind a rock, and there, unseen and unsuspected, drops his brilliant colored fly on the surface in such a manner that the fish below will think the fly is committing suicide.”
Another great example of her humor :
“The reason for the food was this: One member of our party was sure to know a short cut. It is my invariable rule, when anyone knows a short cut, to take food along.”
There are plenty of examples of lovely passages as well:
“Back into the wilderness we pushed, through green valleys rimmed with gray cliff walls, fording streams, surprising a deer, losing the tiny trail in some creek bed or valley and finding it again. Now and then I stopped, ostensibly to look at the view, but, really, to rest. For the slow gait of a horse on a dangerous trail is a racking one, and every twist of a climbing animal is a twist for its rider.”
29 pages on this one.
DESERT CARAVANERS :
As a family trip to the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico appears imminent, Rinehart has reservations:
“And about this time, too, the Head of the family came across and read aloud an article on Death Valley. There were temperatures which sounded like the instructions for baking a cake. No birds were there; no life whatever. Of course we were not going to Death Valley, but the article considerably undermined our morale.”
Once again, of course, she proves to be a hoot:
“I sat down and wrote to Howard, whose enthusiasm for unknown places was behind the trip, explaining that I felt that I had, under normal conditions, a long and useful career before me, and why cut it short.”
But of course she goes, and it’s as difficult as she imagined and as rewarding as Howard Eaton imagined.
Her descriptions are wonderful, as are her observations about the Navajo, Oraibi, Hotevila, and especially the Hopi. Witnessing the Snake Dance is a particular highlight, as is the difficulty of crossing rivers with vehicles, and the setting up of the various big tents for a large group, and the amount of trading between the tribes and those venturing into the desert.
She points out that experts from the Agricultural College were sent to teach dry farming to the Native American tribes, and ended up learning from them, because the desert tribes knew far more than they how to survive in the desert.
An enjoyable 30 pages for this one, but it ends in a manner that makes you wish for the rest of the story going forward. Fortunately we get it in the next one up.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SIGHTSEER :
A continuation of the previous entry, there is a lot of great stuff in this account. Stranded because of a broken axle and constant worries with the trucks; the magnificence of the Walpi once they get going, with Rinehart making note that it is older than the fortress castles of the Rhine, yet there is such difficulty in getting there only a few souls, mostly artists, make it there each year; the White House of Cañon de Chelly; a stuttering driver; sand paintings done for a fee; the joy of reaching Gallup, where there are rooms and baths after weeks; and a great deal about the Navajo and Hopi.
Of the two tribes, Rinehart found the Hopi much friendlier and more amenable. The Hopi were farmers, cultivators of the land, but the Navajo of the time were still closer to the mindset of their ancestors, who were much like the Apache. Rinehart describes them as a fierce and lawless tribe, predatory and acquisitive, nomads with an Arab aquilinity and gravity, and tremendous stock breeders with fine horses.
Both tribes by this time in history had had Christian beliefs thrust upon them. Rinehart noted that the Navajo seemed to gravitate toward the Catholic, while the Hopi the Protestant. Yet in both cases they basically stuck to their own religion and beliefs, while not shunning the other, figuring that two ways to God were better than one.
Perhaps the most moving moment so far is Rinehart’s observation of the palpable grief among Hopi and Navajo families as 21 children were gathered to be sent far away to California to school:
“Sad-faced victims of civilization, unable to grasp what lay beyond this enforced separation, seeing it only something akin to the slaughter of the first-born, they neither moved nor spoke. To our caravan, usually a matter of eager interest, they scarcely lifted their eyes. Men and women, they crouched and waited, as one waits for a death in the house.”
21 pages for this one, but one of the most informative.
ADVENTURING DE LUXE :
The trucks are ahead for a change, so Rinehart and her fellow travelers don’t have to search behind them for hours or days and fret about breakdowns as they head for Zuni country in New Mexico.
The rock cliff inscriptions dating back hundreds of years is a highlight, with Rinehart’s take on one such inscription from 1629, boasting of putting the Zunis at peace and their request to be among his vassals, being quite pointed :
“I hope he did not carve that himself. And I am dubious, too, as to his methods of persuasiveness as to how he put the Zunis into peace. There is a peace called death. I rather think he conquered them first and then made them vassals at their request at the end of a sword.”
Following a paragraph full of Rinehart’s wonderful description of what she saw, we get this gem:
“Such is Zuni. Such, too, was Zuni, before it was put to peace three hundred years ago. The Indian of the Southwest has not changed. His towns are the same. He is the same. Only — he has remained a vassal.”
Her account of a young man in St. Johns sure to one day become its mayor is very amusing.
She has a great deal to say about traversing the trails of the Grand Cañon as well, and you get a sense of how rugged things were at this time in history.
Only 15 pages for this one, but really full.
BELOW THE BORDER IN WARTIME :
Rinehart and her friend Mary Elizabeth journey to Mexico during the time of Villa and this proves to be both colorful and adventurous; and, at times, quite dangerous, beyond the perils of the trail and towns and bandits and soldiers.
Rinehart expounds on the difficulty of bathing in the open country when there are but two women among eleven men, and very serious bandits are nearby. There is also weather to contend with, when a rain lasting 36 hours, accompanied by terrible winds, attacks the camp :
“Soon our boudoir was a lake with two islands in the center, said islands being Mary Elizabeth and myself. At each onslaught of the gale some treasured and intimate article of wearing apparel took wings and departed into the night.”
Mary Elizabeth’s horse falls and her friend is banged up and bruised among the boulders, but still they persevere.
An unexpected lake in the woods — they were in constant search of water on every journey — provides a memorable moment because the lake is covered in tiny black specks…
And of course, down Mexico way, no matter how dangerous, two pretty American girls would be serenaded outside their tent, the men doing the serenading hoping for a response.
Even as they return to American soil, the stark reality of where they’d been was evident :
“Somewhere out in the Pacific that night, was a gun boat looking for us. Somewhere back along the trail, was our pack outfit, heading unsteadily for us. But somewhere to the north was a wire fence, and a little customs house set in a desert field, and beyond that was home.”
38 pages for this one, and a wonderful read.
A HOUSEBOAT ON THE KEYS :
Florida and the innate desire to own a boat, specifically a houseboat from which to travel on the water and fish and explore is made humorous and entertaining by Rinehart’s biting humor as she keeps getting sidetracked in telling about the houseboat.
She tells of sea creatures and boats and trying to reel in catches. Her amusing take on bonefishing :
“Joe is a bonefisherman. For six years at one time he and the banker, who was growing old, had to be lifted in and out of the canoe, and only stopped when that ceased to be possible. Bonefishing, one perceives, may be the strongest passion in life, surviving everything else.”
There are, in fact, enough tales of fishing here to satisfy any angler, some very funny. But, as Rinehart would say, back to the boat!
“The way to enjoy a house-boat is to be a visitor on one. It costs rather less to run than an orphan asylum, but with this difference, that a good orphan asylum works all year, and the house-boat does not.”
The amount of gasoline it guzzles, the constant repairs needed, the crew needed to run and maintain it, the food needed to feed them all and the guests, are all fodder for Rinehart’s splendid sense of humor.
27 pages for this final story, from one of the greatest of mystery writers.
Summation :
Though I’ve used a few more quotes than usual in a review, they are but drops of water in a lake when compared to the wealth of nice moments and observations by Rinehart in this story. Why more people aren’t reading this, is in itself a mystery worthy of Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Mary Roberts Rinehart was much more than a great mystery writer, but as Rick Rinehart states in his affectionate, can’t miss mini-bio of her in his introduction :
“She was a feminine version of a Horatio Alger character and lived a live a life that Jan Cohn has described as ‘improbable fiction.’”
Very highly recommended !!
Famous today for her tremendous contribution to the mystery genre, the woman most often identified with the “Had I but Known” foreshadowing, and old-fashioned heroines whose families had once been wealthy and part of high-society, but who had fallen on hard financial times, only to become involved in murder mysteries which were as intricately plotted as they were slowly evolving and atmospheric of time and place, there was another side to Rinehart, one that was funny and adventurous and self-deprecating.
The stories in The Out Trail paint a portrait of that side of Rinehart in a wonderful way. I do wish that the publisher had been a bit more careful in transferring these wonderful stories, because typos do occasionally — but not often — creep into these stories that likely weren’t in there originally. It is ticky-tack stuff however, and barely a blip on the radar. The stories are splendid, and here is an overview of them :
ROUGHING IT WITH THE MEN :
After listing her extensive resumé of rough travels and adventures, some more than a little dangerous, Rinehart states:
“I submit modestly that while there is nothing heroic about this record, I am entitled to a silver cup for variety and endurance. And the men who have accompanied me are entitled to a gold one.”
There is much humor laced within this particular piece, some of it self-deprecating, some of it wickedly biting.
Rinehart pretends on every excursion to be oblivious in regard to the making of hot biscuits on the trail, lest she be lassoed into doing so constantly, as she’s witnessed of others, and be unable to enjoy the other adventures of the party.
One thing that becomes very clear is that Rinehart, though independent and successful, was no radical feminist man-hater. She would likely be appalled at the modern radicalization of feminism which is so filled with hostility and unreasonableness. She seems much more likely to have agreed with Catherine Deneuve and the other 100 women who wrote that open letter slamming the MeToo movement, alluding to it being steeped in misandry.
Before expounding on the reasons men often go off alone on these rugged journeys, rather than bring the women they so miss, which is quite interesting, she states:
“Everything else being equal, superior physical strength always gives man the advantage.”
Rinehart is in no way slighting her own sex here, she applauds them in fact, but she was able and willing to make an honest observation based on her many times on the trail. It is very refreshing.
A 17 page story.
THE DUDE RANCH :
Wonderful reminiscences of the Bighorn Wyoming ranch. Rinehart once again is a hoot, her observations wonderful. So was she, as in the time she used pure ingenuity to create costume for many in her family for a shindig.
She expounds on the Dude Ranch, and why some will always be considered dudes, and the reason. She tells of the banker who formed a tender bond with a horse named Sowbelly, and is at her most tongue-in-cheek when talking about the fishing:
“Now, any fisherman will know that the only way to catch trout is to surprise them. To startle no birds. To frighten no butterflies. To stalk the stream like an Indian stalking his prey. Crawling, creeping, hiding, the true fisherman at last takes up his stand behind a rock, and there, unseen and unsuspected, drops his brilliant colored fly on the surface in such a manner that the fish below will think the fly is committing suicide.”
Another great example of her humor :
“The reason for the food was this: One member of our party was sure to know a short cut. It is my invariable rule, when anyone knows a short cut, to take food along.”
There are plenty of examples of lovely passages as well:
“Back into the wilderness we pushed, through green valleys rimmed with gray cliff walls, fording streams, surprising a deer, losing the tiny trail in some creek bed or valley and finding it again. Now and then I stopped, ostensibly to look at the view, but, really, to rest. For the slow gait of a horse on a dangerous trail is a racking one, and every twist of a climbing animal is a twist for its rider.”
29 pages on this one.
DESERT CARAVANERS :
As a family trip to the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico appears imminent, Rinehart has reservations:
“And about this time, too, the Head of the family came across and read aloud an article on Death Valley. There were temperatures which sounded like the instructions for baking a cake. No birds were there; no life whatever. Of course we were not going to Death Valley, but the article considerably undermined our morale.”
Once again, of course, she proves to be a hoot:
“I sat down and wrote to Howard, whose enthusiasm for unknown places was behind the trip, explaining that I felt that I had, under normal conditions, a long and useful career before me, and why cut it short.”
But of course she goes, and it’s as difficult as she imagined and as rewarding as Howard Eaton imagined.
Her descriptions are wonderful, as are her observations about the Navajo, Oraibi, Hotevila, and especially the Hopi. Witnessing the Snake Dance is a particular highlight, as is the difficulty of crossing rivers with vehicles, and the setting up of the various big tents for a large group, and the amount of trading between the tribes and those venturing into the desert.
She points out that experts from the Agricultural College were sent to teach dry farming to the Native American tribes, and ended up learning from them, because the desert tribes knew far more than they how to survive in the desert.
An enjoyable 30 pages for this one, but it ends in a manner that makes you wish for the rest of the story going forward. Fortunately we get it in the next one up.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SIGHTSEER :
A continuation of the previous entry, there is a lot of great stuff in this account. Stranded because of a broken axle and constant worries with the trucks; the magnificence of the Walpi once they get going, with Rinehart making note that it is older than the fortress castles of the Rhine, yet there is such difficulty in getting there only a few souls, mostly artists, make it there each year; the White House of Cañon de Chelly; a stuttering driver; sand paintings done for a fee; the joy of reaching Gallup, where there are rooms and baths after weeks; and a great deal about the Navajo and Hopi.
Of the two tribes, Rinehart found the Hopi much friendlier and more amenable. The Hopi were farmers, cultivators of the land, but the Navajo of the time were still closer to the mindset of their ancestors, who were much like the Apache. Rinehart describes them as a fierce and lawless tribe, predatory and acquisitive, nomads with an Arab aquilinity and gravity, and tremendous stock breeders with fine horses.
Both tribes by this time in history had had Christian beliefs thrust upon them. Rinehart noted that the Navajo seemed to gravitate toward the Catholic, while the Hopi the Protestant. Yet in both cases they basically stuck to their own religion and beliefs, while not shunning the other, figuring that two ways to God were better than one.
Perhaps the most moving moment so far is Rinehart’s observation of the palpable grief among Hopi and Navajo families as 21 children were gathered to be sent far away to California to school:
“Sad-faced victims of civilization, unable to grasp what lay beyond this enforced separation, seeing it only something akin to the slaughter of the first-born, they neither moved nor spoke. To our caravan, usually a matter of eager interest, they scarcely lifted their eyes. Men and women, they crouched and waited, as one waits for a death in the house.”
21 pages for this one, but one of the most informative.
ADVENTURING DE LUXE :
The trucks are ahead for a change, so Rinehart and her fellow travelers don’t have to search behind them for hours or days and fret about breakdowns as they head for Zuni country in New Mexico.
The rock cliff inscriptions dating back hundreds of years is a highlight, with Rinehart’s take on one such inscription from 1629, boasting of putting the Zunis at peace and their request to be among his vassals, being quite pointed :
“I hope he did not carve that himself. And I am dubious, too, as to his methods of persuasiveness as to how he put the Zunis into peace. There is a peace called death. I rather think he conquered them first and then made them vassals at their request at the end of a sword.”
Following a paragraph full of Rinehart’s wonderful description of what she saw, we get this gem:
“Such is Zuni. Such, too, was Zuni, before it was put to peace three hundred years ago. The Indian of the Southwest has not changed. His towns are the same. He is the same. Only — he has remained a vassal.”
Her account of a young man in St. Johns sure to one day become its mayor is very amusing.
She has a great deal to say about traversing the trails of the Grand Cañon as well, and you get a sense of how rugged things were at this time in history.
Only 15 pages for this one, but really full.
BELOW THE BORDER IN WARTIME :
Rinehart and her friend Mary Elizabeth journey to Mexico during the time of Villa and this proves to be both colorful and adventurous; and, at times, quite dangerous, beyond the perils of the trail and towns and bandits and soldiers.
Rinehart expounds on the difficulty of bathing in the open country when there are but two women among eleven men, and very serious bandits are nearby. There is also weather to contend with, when a rain lasting 36 hours, accompanied by terrible winds, attacks the camp :
“Soon our boudoir was a lake with two islands in the center, said islands being Mary Elizabeth and myself. At each onslaught of the gale some treasured and intimate article of wearing apparel took wings and departed into the night.”
Mary Elizabeth’s horse falls and her friend is banged up and bruised among the boulders, but still they persevere.
An unexpected lake in the woods — they were in constant search of water on every journey — provides a memorable moment because the lake is covered in tiny black specks…
And of course, down Mexico way, no matter how dangerous, two pretty American girls would be serenaded outside their tent, the men doing the serenading hoping for a response.
Even as they return to American soil, the stark reality of where they’d been was evident :
“Somewhere out in the Pacific that night, was a gun boat looking for us. Somewhere back along the trail, was our pack outfit, heading unsteadily for us. But somewhere to the north was a wire fence, and a little customs house set in a desert field, and beyond that was home.”
38 pages for this one, and a wonderful read.
A HOUSEBOAT ON THE KEYS :
Florida and the innate desire to own a boat, specifically a houseboat from which to travel on the water and fish and explore is made humorous and entertaining by Rinehart’s biting humor as she keeps getting sidetracked in telling about the houseboat.
She tells of sea creatures and boats and trying to reel in catches. Her amusing take on bonefishing :
“Joe is a bonefisherman. For six years at one time he and the banker, who was growing old, had to be lifted in and out of the canoe, and only stopped when that ceased to be possible. Bonefishing, one perceives, may be the strongest passion in life, surviving everything else.”
There are, in fact, enough tales of fishing here to satisfy any angler, some very funny. But, as Rinehart would say, back to the boat!
“The way to enjoy a house-boat is to be a visitor on one. It costs rather less to run than an orphan asylum, but with this difference, that a good orphan asylum works all year, and the house-boat does not.”
The amount of gasoline it guzzles, the constant repairs needed, the crew needed to run and maintain it, the food needed to feed them all and the guests, are all fodder for Rinehart’s splendid sense of humor.
27 pages for this final story, from one of the greatest of mystery writers.
Summation :
Though I’ve used a few more quotes than usual in a review, they are but drops of water in a lake when compared to the wealth of nice moments and observations by Rinehart in this story. Why more people aren’t reading this, is in itself a mystery worthy of Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Mary Roberts Rinehart was much more than a great mystery writer, but as Rick Rinehart states in his affectionate, can’t miss mini-bio of her in his introduction :
“She was a feminine version of a Horatio Alger character and lived a live a life that Jan Cohn has described as ‘improbable fiction.’”
Very highly recommended !!
December 28, 2023
Absolutely fantastic. Hilarious, witty, engaging. Reinhart at her best in a series of autobiographical essays about her trips South of the border and out west in the early 1900s. Even on her worst day, Reinhart is more engaging than Agatha Christy.
January 14, 2024
This is an overall lighthearted and easy read. It both entertained and inspired. At a time in my life where travel is a big priority, I enjoyed reading about the stories from someone with similar interests but from a different time period where the country was just a little more wild. It rejuvenated my interests in going to see new places and experience new things.
May 11, 2025
This book was for sale at the Grand Canyon so I thought it would have spent more time there and that was a little misleading and disappointing because I love that place. I did love the aspect that she was a woman exploring and all her genuine feelings about the worst and best parts about being out there - which is real. Overall, it was a little boring at times. This quote about the Grand Canyon is my favorite part of the book:
“After all, what was the use of reflecting about the gorge? It was too big and deep for one mind. It was as beyond thought, as it was beyond words.”
“After all, what was the use of reflecting about the gorge? It was too big and deep for one mind. It was as beyond thought, as it was beyond words.”
October 25, 2021
A hodge-podge of travel stories. Liked the story of El Morro since I just went there. Author has spunk, and a wicked sense of humor (sarcasm), I think.
July 20, 2024
Author seemed like a witty and adventurous woman, and I so wanted her to be more feminist and not racist. Still, an interesting insight into the past.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews