32 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



tearing the ring out of my watch, I gave up the attempt. 

 Then it occurred to me that the weather-beaten granite 

 boulders that looked so ghostly in the starlight might 

 have retained some of the heat from the afternoon sun, 

 and finding them warmer than the air I snuggled down 

 in a sheltered corner to rest. When I began to cough, 

 however, I felt that the hospitaHty of those rocks was not 

 going to suffice. 



Clad in my vulnerable tropical attire, it seemed to me 

 as if the chill night draughts flowed down from the 

 snowy peaks like breaths from the north pole. It was 

 certainly a "nipping and an eager air" that night, as 

 Horatio would say. 



I thought of my canvas leggings, and removing them 

 hung them around my neck, one in front and one behind 

 under my summery raiment. When finally my teeth 

 began to chatter I decided that I would really have to 

 dance. 



In the dim light from a moonless sky in a pine forest 

 I felt out a straight course on the sloping hillside that 

 was free of saplings, cones and dead branches between 

 two giant pine trunks and forty of my paces long. Thirty 

 round trips I estimated would make a mile and occupy 

 half an hour. Every six round trips I went through six 

 movements in eight different gymnasium performances, 

 which any one familiar with dumbbells or chestweights 

 can imagine. Every ten trips I lay down on the pine 

 needles and took a short rest, the biting wind effectually 

 preventing my falling asleep. 



Once, going toward the low murmur, I worked my way 

 in the darkness down to the stream for a drink of water, 

 and several times I heard the breaking of large twigs as 

 if an inquisitive deer had been attracted by my unusual 

 performances. Thoughts of bears or mountain lions did 

 not worry me at all as I had never yet been molested, 

 and I had a five-inch bladed bowie knife that gave me 

 confidence. Rattlesnakes, I had always understood, if 

 present at all were usually not abroad after dark, 



