tion.

We topped a gently rounding summit; took several deep breaths into the
uttermost cells of our distressed lungs; walked forward a dozen
steps--and found ourselves looking over the sheer brink of a precipice.
So startlingly unforeseen was the swoop into blue space that I recoiled
hastily, feeling a little dizzy. Then I recovered and stepped forward
cautiously for another look. As with all sheer precipices, the lip on
which we stood seemed slightly to overhang, so that in order to see one
had apparently to crane away over, quite off balance. Only by the
strongest effort of the will is one able to rid oneself of the notion
that the centre of gravity is about to plunge one off head first into
blue space. For it was fairly blue space below our precipice. We could
see birds wheeling below us; and then below them again, very tiny, the
fall away of talus, and the tops of trees in the basin below. And
opposite, and all around, even down over the horizon, were other
majestic peaks, peers of our own, naked and rugged. From camp the great
forests had seemed to us the most important, most dominant, most
pervading feature of the wilderness. Now in the high sisterhood of the
peaks we saw they were as mantles that had been dropped about the feet.

Across the face of the cliff below us ran irregular tiny ledges;
buttresses ended in narrow peaks; "chimneys" ran down irregularly to the
talus. Here were supposed to dwell the goats.

We proceeded along the crest, spying eagerly. We saw tracks; but no
animals. By now it was four o'clock, and past time to turn campward. We
struck down the mountain on a diagonal that should take us home. For
some distance all went well enough. To be sure, it was very steep, and
we had to pay due attention to balance and sliding. Then a rock wall
barred our way. It was not a very large rock wall. We went below it.
After a hundred yards we struck another. By now the first had risen
until it towered far above us, a sheer, gray cliff behind which the sky
was very blue. We skirted the base of the second and lower cliff. It led
us to another; and to still another. Each of these we passed on the
talus beneath it; but with increasing difficulty, owing to the fact that
the wide ledges were pinching out. At last we found ourselves cut off
from farther progress. To our right rose tier after tier of great
cliffs, serenely and loftily unconscious of any little insects like
ourselves that might be puttering around t