Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/97

60 or to the tasks of the morrow, while the stars slowly swung over our heads.

At last the camp was still. Down the canyon came the long-drawn howl of a wolf, once and again, and we were asleep; the long day and the soothing night proving too much for the shuddering delight of that long, weird, gruesome sound. We turned over in our sleep and woke. It was morning. The Professor had already "fixed" the horses and was lighting the breakfast fire. Unhappily, we possessed the remnants of conscience which refused to lie down, and though the sun had given as yet no hint of arriving, we persuaded ourselves that it was day. A solid breakfast, prayers, and we stood ready for the climb, greener at our work than the very greenest of the young pines that stood about us, but with fine jaunty courage of the young recruit marching to his first campaign.

An expert mountain-climber, glancing down the line, would have absolutely refused to move from the tent door. With the exception of the Lady from Montreal, who had done Mt. Blanc, not one of us had ever climbed anything more imposing than Little Tunnel, one thousand feet high. While as to equipment, we hadn't any, not even an alpenstock between the lot of us. As for the ladies, they appeared to carry their full quota of flimsy skirts and petticoats, while on their feet they wore their second-best kid boots. It was truly a case of fools rushing in where angels pause. Without trail, without guide, but knowing that the top was up there somewhere, we set out, water-bottles and brandy-flasks—in case of accident—and lunch baskets slung at the belts of the male members of the party, the sole shred of mountaineering outfit being the trunk of a sapling in the hand of each ambitious climber.

As we struck out from camp, the sun was tipping the highest pines far up on the mountain side to the west. Cascade mountain has a sheer face, but a long,