Some Aspects of a Sierra Club Outing. 227 



covering the distance. It is possible to travel all day with- 

 out meeting a sign of a fellow Sierran save his footprints 

 in the trail. 



And what a spell the forest weaves for you when you 

 are alone! Each turn of the trail has its message. The 

 little woodland creatures^ the birds and squirrels and chip- 

 munks, so suspicious of the sound of laughter and voices, 

 look at you with their quick, bright glances and hardly 

 seem to think it worth their while to hide. After all, 

 these are the moments which live. The grandeur of the 

 summit peaks thrills you into awed stillness while your 

 eyes behold it, yet, Hke remembered music, when the 

 image returns to the mind, something of the stir and the 

 exaltation is irrevocably lost. But the glint of the sun on 

 the river, the meadow knee-deep in flowers of the shoot- 

 ing-star, the creeping shadows and the lingering light 

 in the forest at nightfall, — all these little half-noticed 

 charms of the wayside sink deep into the memory to 

 flash forth again, fresh and undimmed, with a certain 

 haloed brightness. 



The Sierra Club has great and noble purposes, for 

 which we honor it, but besides these its name has come to 

 mean an ideal to us. It means comradeship and chivalry, 

 simplicity and joyousness, and the care-free life of the 

 open. You may have marred that ideal often by word or 

 deed, for you are human and must needs carry your fol- 

 lies and weaknesses with you even to the woods ; but you 

 must be foolish and weak indeed not to bear home some- 

 thing of the strength and purity and beauty amongst 

 which you have lived. 



For a little while you have dwelt close to the heart of 

 things. You have lain down to sleep in a wide chamber 



