52 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



intended tlie preparations for the bivouac. My five- 

 pound eiderdown sleeping-bag was to receive its initia- 

 tion. We did nothing very arduous or unscriptural when 

 we took up our beds and carried them to a reasonably 

 level spot on the edge of the river gorge. In a country 

 where rains during a large part of the year are unknown 

 the stars are better than a tent, and contact with the bare 

 ground is more a question of comfort than of health. 

 To get into our bags was the work of a few moments, 

 and — a tired mountaineer needs no sedatives. But the 

 extreme novelty of the situation, assisted by villainous 

 unevennesses of the ground and by prowling mules, had 

 the effect of keeping at least one " tenderfoot " awake 

 for some time. From the bottom of the gorge rose the 

 sound of water plunging along the narrow, boulder- 

 strewn channel of the Kaweah. Strange voices of bird 

 or beast came floating down from the surrounding 

 heights. Suddenly there was heard a stealthy tread. In- 

 stinctively his hand felt for a weapon, — when he saw the 

 prodigious ears of a mule silhouetted against the sky-line. 

 A brief skirmish, and the intruder left. But about 2 

 o'clock in the morning an inexcusable interrogatory snort 

 suddenly broke into the dreams of two sleepers. There 

 in the dim light, his nose almost in contact with their 

 effects, stood a big mule on mischief bent. A stone 

 launched unperceived caught him on the nose, and to his 

 mulish wits it must have seemed that the pile of things 

 he had so loudly interrogated had suddenly responded 

 by biting him in the nose. He reared, almost falling on 

 his back, and charged up the hill with a clatter that must 

 have sent every coyote within a mile of us to cover. To 

 add to his own as well as their excitement, he unwittingly 



