walk in the Berkeley hills for a certain Saturday, November 22, and that
morning it rained. One of the tenets I was brought up on by my father
was that bad weather was _never_ an excuse for postponing anything; so I
took it for granted that we would start on our walk as planned.

Carl telephoned anon and said, "Of course the walk is off."

"But why?" I asked.

"The rain!" he answered.

"As if that makes any difference!"

At which he gasped a little and said all right, he'd be around in a
minute; which he was, in his Idaho outfit, the lunch he had suggested
being entirely responsible for bulging one pocket. Off we started in the
rain, and such a day as we had! We climbed Grizzly Peak,--only we did
not know it for the fog and rain,--and just over the summit, in the
shelter of a very drippy oak tree, we sat down for lunch. A fairly
sanctified expression came over Carl's face as he drew forth a rather
damp and frayed-looking paper-bag--as a king might look who uncovered
the chest of his most precious court jewels before a courtier deemed
worthy of that honor. And before my puzzled and somewhat doubtful eyes
he spread his treasure--jerked bear-meat, nothing but jerked bear-meat.
I never had seen jerked anything, let alone tasted it. I was used to
the conventional picnic sandwiches done up in waxed paper, plus a
stuffed egg, fruit, and cake. I was ready for a lunch after the
conservative pattern, and here I gazed upon a mess of most
unappetizing-looking, wrinkled, shrunken, jerked bear-meat, the rain
dropping down on it through the oak tree.