Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/159

Rh to Robinson, who took advantage of my waking to borrow a pair of warm gloves and to fish unsuccessfully for the loan of an ice-axe, an article evidently possessed by neither of us. There would be frosty weather on Temple—possibly flurries of snow; altogether Robinson at 5.30 a.m. seemed to look less cheerfully on the climb than he had done at 10.30 the night before. Finally he picked his way over the snoring mummies between him and the entrance, fumbled awhile at the fastenings, and crawled out, leaving a loose flap, past which the raw mountain air came sifting in.

Once Robinson's footsteps had died away I rolled my blankets tighter and tried to sleep. For a time I succeeded, but the open flap of the tent was in the end too much, and before a fair holiday rising hour I felt moved to get up and investigate the camp. My dim recollection of last night's arrival reminded me that I was a lodger in tent No. 5, Men's Quarters, south side of Paradise Creek. After wrestling with the puttees and crawling into the open, I found that tent No. 5 was almost the last from the bridge but at no great distance from the creek; and I soon washed and started out to find the main camp. All along as I made my way cheerfully over the stumps, guy-ropes and rocks that had treated me so scurvily the night before, I found other denizens of the men's quarters creeping out with soap and towel, or furbishing up their ice-axes and boots for the day's work. Crossing the substantial log bridge I reached the stopping place of the pack-train, where a number of the horses, just arrived from Laggan, were waiting to be unpacked. Before me now was the main encampment on the lowest slope of Aberdeen in a clearing hewn from the thick woods. Whatever it was hewn from I suspected it of holding a breakfast for me, and on I pushed through the tents. In another minute the breakfast was in view. Half way up what seemed to be the main street of the camp, and in the middle of