Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/156

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Canadian Alpine Journal


MISCELLANEOUS SECTION.

PARADISE VALLEY CAMP.


By Francis C. Walker.

"Mr. Robinson! Is Mr. Robinson in this tent?" A very sleepy voice said something which might have been taken for a "yes." "Time for breakfast if you mean to make Mount Temple to-day. Party starts at 5.30 sharp." The sleepy voice gave a reply a trifle less like a grunt this time, and brisk steps were heard moving away from the tent. It was my first day in camp in the Paradise Valley, and I was just enough awake to rejoice that I was not in Robinson's shoes, while being still too much asleep to know whether it was my feet or Robinson's that were being pulled out of the pile about the tent-pole. I opened one eye and saw to my relief that a quite unfamiliar sock was being thrust into a stout hob-nailed boot. Evidently I had been left intact beneath the blankets, and could afford to take a spectator's view of any further preparations. I opened the other eye to see how he would manage the puttees, which he was now fishing out in suspicious newness from the dunnage bag. For the life of me I could not see that he knew any more about the things than I did. Possibly he knew less, for the right leg cost him three tries and the left leg two, while I flattered myself I could turn off the pair in an average of two attempts. Besides, the effect produced seemed all out of proportion to the cost of production in language, for the swathing was accompanied by a soliloquy whose depth of meaning made up for its lowness of tone. I intimated these views