With the Sierra Club in the Kern Canon. 



23 



WITH THE SIERRA CLUB IN THE KERN CANON. 



By Marion Randall Parsons. 



One of the tenderfeet had fallen behind on the trail. 

 A two o'clock arising and a long morning of staging, 

 followed by a walk of seven hot, steep, dusty miles, had 

 proved too much for urban muscles and wind and she had 

 lagged behind. Nearing camp in the early dusk she saw 

 brightly burning fires and a cheerful animation about 

 the commissary department, denoting, she supposed, a 

 dinner hour postponed to meet the needs of weary strag- 

 glers like herself. What was her horror, then, to hear 

 roared in tones of authority: 



"Last call for lunch ! Get your lunches for to-morrow ! 

 You'll have to hurry !" 



"Gracious!" thought the tenderfoot with mounting 

 uneasiness, "I've missed dinner and breakfast and nearly 

 lost lunch ! If they are as forehanded as that with all 

 the meals I'll starve." 



It was therefore something of a relief to find that 

 Charley Tuck, with a soft spot in his lazy old heart for 

 laggards, had kept the soup and other comforting things 

 piping hot for the last comers, and to observe his assist- 

 ant slicing bacon for the morrow's breakfast; but many 

 days had elapsed before that first impression of strenuous 

 camp life was wiped from her mind. 



Indeed, the first days of a Sierra Club outing, when the 

 big party is on the march from civilization to camp, have 

 in them little leisure for man or beast. The morning of 

 July 1st, the second day of the outing, but the first of real 

 camp life, dawned very early for us. At 4 o'clock a 

 sleepy Chinaman banged a dishpan with a spoon, yelling 

 a Mongolian version of "Everybody get up !" The cry 

 was taken up by each Sierran as he awoke, until the 

 whole camp was chanting it in unison. A short lull sue- 



