51�Թ�

“She’d be barefoot, and with her husband, Allan, would duck under the focusing cloth of their heavy eight-by-ten view camera and start whispering conspiratorially before they photographed me.”

Our party found temporary shelter in an abandoned hut in a quarry at the mountain top, but being miles from our stopping-place, and having failed to provide ourselves with even a single umbrella, one of the party, Mr. Ralph Austin, saw possibilities in the umbrella line when I folded up my rubber-coated focusing cloth.

Then the focusing cloth was stretched across the frame and tied down at the corners with more strips from the handkerchief.

There was a refreshing amount of wind; the tree tops beyond the bridge swayed a little against the sky; the focusing cloth flapped between the tripod legs, and for some minutes the girl stood absently imbibing all this, without a thought in her head.

The focusing cloth clung to her head like a cowl as she raised it and bowed.