red Harris to make the ascent, so I
could put the thrill and horror of it in my book, and he accomplished
the feat successfully, through a subagent, for three francs, which I
paid. It makes me shudder yet when I think of what I felt when I was
clinging there between heaven and earth in the person of that proxy. At
times the world swam around me, and I could hardly keep from letting go,
so dizzying was the appalling danger. Many a person would have given up
and descended, but I stuck to my task, and would not yield until I had
accomplished it. I felt a just pride in my exploit, but I would not have
repeated it for the wealth of the world. I shall break my neck yet with
some such foolhardy performance, for warnings never seem to have any
lasting effect on me. When the people of the hotel found that I had
been climbing those crazy Ladders, it made me an object of considerable
attention.

Next morning, early, we drove to the Rhone valley and took the train for
Visp. There we shouldered our knapsacks and things, and set out on foot,
in a tremendous rain, up the winding gorge, toward Zermatt. Hour after
hour we slopped along, by the roaring torrent, and under noble Lesser
Alps which were clothed in rich velvety green all the way up and
had little atomy Swiss homes perched upon grassy benches along their
mist-dimmed heights.

The rain continued to pour and the torrent to boom, and we continued
to enjoy both. At the one spot where this torrent tossed its white mane
highest, and thundered loudest, and lashed the big boulders fiercest,
the canton had done itself the honor to build the flimsiest wooden
bridge that exists in the world. While we were walking over it, along
with a party of horsemen, I noticed that even the larger raindrops made
it shake. I called Harris's attention to it, and he noticed it, too.
It seemed to me that if I owned an elephant that was a keepsake, and I
thought a good deal of him, I would think twice before I would ride him
over that bridge.

We climbed up to the village of St. Nicholas, about half past four
in the afternoon, waded ankle-deep through the fertilizer-juice, and
stopped at a new and nice hotel close by the little church. We stripped
and went to bed, and sent our clothes down to be baked. And the horde
of soaked tourists did the same. That chaos of clothing got mixed in the
kitchen, and there were consequences.

I did not get back the same drawers I sent down, when our things came up