y consideration to secure their lasting
good-will, I was on my way down the street again with my light luggage
on my back. This time the entire population of the little village was in
the road, and as I passed along I knew by their murmuring conversation
that they regarded my action with profound misgiving. I felt, as I
returned their touch of the cap and bade them good-by, a little like the
gladiators of old who, about to die, saluted Caesar.

At the gate my strange guide, who had not moved from the spot where I
first found him, insisted on taking my luggage, and buckling his straps
around it and flinging it over his back, he handed me his stick, and
without a word strode off straight toward the black mountain whose vast
wall towered above us to the clouds.

I shall never forget that climb.

We were hardly out of the road before we began to ascend, and I had
shortly to stop for breath. My guide, however, if silent was thoughtful,
and he soon caught my gait and knew when to pause. Up through the dusk
we went, he guiding me now by a word telling me how to step, or now
turning to give me his hand to help me up a steep place, over a large
rock, or around a bad angle. For a time we had heard the roar of the
torrent as it boiled below us, but as we ascended it had gradually
hushed, and we at length were in a region of profound silence. The night
was cloudy, and as dark as it ever is in midsummer in that far
northern latitude; but I knew that we were climbing along the edge of
a precipice, on a narrow ledge of rock along the face of the cliff. The
vast black wall above us rose sheer up, and I could feel rather than
see that it went as sheer down, though my sight could not penetrate the
darkness which filled the deep abyss below. We had been climbing about
three hours when suddenly the ledge seemed to die out. My guide stopped,
and unwinding his rope from his waist, held it out to me. I obeyed
his silent gesture, and binding it around my body gave him the end. He
wrapped it about him, and then taking me by the arm, as if I had been
a child, he led me slowly along the narrow ledge around the face of the
wall, step by step, telling me where to place my feet, and waiting till
they were firmly planted. I began now to understand why no one ever went
"over the mountain" in the day. We were on a ledge nearly three thousand
feet high. If it had not been for the strong, firm hold on my arm, I
could not have stood it. As it was I dare