SWEET LADIES DO STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES
XV. PEOPLE IN CAMP
A day’s steady tramping brought us to a camp, and then we bathed in St. Mary’s Lake and washed every separate item of linen, even that which we wore, and we sun-baked ourselves on the hot beach while the clothes dried, and we made a clean appearance at last among fair women and brave men, and we took supplies on which to vagabondise for days on the slopes of Going-to-the-Sun Mountain.
It was a curious experience to be absolutely alone on the mountains so long and then suddenly to come on a large congregation of tourists. Going-to-the-Sun Camp is a spectacular point in the recognised tour of Glacier Wilderness.
“We are doing the four days’ tour,” is the common explanation which visitors gave us. Or, “We are making the triangular trip.”
One’s eyes naturally rest on the ladies, who are nearly all in seeming male attire, and some of this attire fits and some does not; some of it suggests homes where men are rare and breeches have to be imported. But they all look pretty well in this simplicity. Girls in mauve and violet jumpers, shiny leather belts, and leg-o’-mutton breeches sit with us at supper and explain that to-day was their first day on a horse—and they know it. “Are you tired?” say I. “You can tell the world,” is the reply. Near us stands a girl in tan riding costume, violet stockings, white shoes, and bobbed brown hair in a hair net. She is talking to two well-built youths, standing with their legs apart, and the girl, imitating their styles, droops forward to them as they chaff one another. She will not stray far. The same may be said of a well-fed lady of sixty, pampered and neurotic, but sitting in a riding jacket and very baggy breeches and nervously smelling at an ammonia bottle. Grandma in trousers is rather portentous.
But how describe the charm of the little boy and girl, children of twelve and thirteen, accoutred also for the horse and sitting on their steeds with the grace of Indians. The old and middle-aged are stiff and only the children look as if they could never get tired. In any case, all is good humour and jollity. Mme. Censure is not here. There are people with crumpled faces and there are people made of dimples and curves—but happiness holds all.
We did not see very much of the tourist life. There is not much of it up here. There ought probably to be more. While Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone are visited by hundreds of thousands of Americans, Glacier is left unused. We do not want its canyons also to be filled up to the top with cans, but no one would grudge a few more people in a wilderness where you can travel weeks without meeting a soul—a few more sharers in the loveliness of the Northern Rockies.