OH, SHOOT! 



so piteously that he turned back. We now 

 guardedly brought up the subject of mountain 

 lions, only to receive Uncle Jim's enthusiastic 

 assurance that the country was indeed full of 

 them. Fortunately it was cold, and he did 

 not notice that the chattering of our teeth 

 increased. 



There is a lot of work wasted in camp life. 

 Late that afternoon we hunted up the only 

 remaining snowdrift on the plateau and 

 packed in two hundred pounds of the cleanest 

 of it. The next morning we awoke to find 

 that it was snowing so heavily that there was 

 enough water for cooking purposes right at 

 hand right in our blankets, as a matter of 

 fact. It was useless to go after lions in such 

 weather, so we spent the day getting ac- 

 quainted with the dogs and dodging the smoke 

 from a sputtering camp fire, the while Miller 

 took the camera apart, dried it, and undertook 

 to put it together again. It was quite an ex- 

 hibition of sleight of hand, for he produced 

 everything out of that box from a wreath of 

 paper flowers to a live rabbit. When the ma- 

 chine was reassembled he still had a hatful of 

 superfluous parts. 



Uncle Jim Owen is a famous character and 

 174 



