ON FOOT IN THE YOSEMITE 



leader caught sight of me he broke out : " Well, 

 old boy, you 've got quite a trip before you. Yes, 

 sir, it 's quite a trip." And with that he pro- 

 ceeded to enlarge upon the theme with no little 

 earnestness, evidently considering it a matter of 

 great uncertainty whether so ancient a mariner 

 would ever come to port. 



And yet I was no Methuselah, I inwardly pro- 

 tested. If I was "goin' on ty," which I 



could not deny, I had still a few laps to make be- 

 fore passing finally under the wire. 



And if it surprised other people that a man 

 should stay here so long and repeat his walks so 

 often, it was perhaps an equal surprise to him 

 that so many well-dressed, intelligent-appearing 

 persons, finding themselves surrounded with all 

 this grandeur, should be contented to stare 

 about them for a day or two, expend a few ex- 

 pletives, snap a camera at this and that, and 

 anon be off again. 



One man, it is true, gave me what I had to con- 

 fess might be, in his case, a valid excuse for brevity. 

 A Southern gentleman he was, as I should have 

 divined at once from the engaging, softly mus- 

 ical quality of his voice. He began with some 

 question about a squirrel, — which had surprised 

 him by running into a hole in the ground, — and 

 after a word or two more called my attention to 



201 



