y attempt to scale it often. Three men
succeeded in making the ascent this very summer. They were roped
together for thirty hours, and when they had come down again, their
faces were seen to be cut and greatly marred. These men spoke fine and
glorious things concerning the hilltop, and of how they looked down
upon five hundred other peaks, but, in strait and narrow minds like
ours, these climbs may be accounted only as strange follies. I have
talked to Clausen Otto about these things, for he has been a guide
hereabout these ten years or more, and is a notable man of affairs. He
said I was only a terribly lame dog in front of a terribly high stile,
and then, fearing that his comment was truthful rather than polite,
Otto proceeded to salve my feelings by explaining how the desire to
climb glaciers was an ill-regulated one, and that what the Bible said
about sucking honey out of a rock was "plumb foolishness."

Once, he was climbing with a hunter of goats when a bear came swiftly
over the glacier-clad peak of the mountain. They were greatly puzzled
to know why the bear had climbed so high, and why it dashed across the
summit. Surely there was something remarkable on the other side of the
peak. After climbing several hours they made the ascent and looked
over. "What do you think we saw?" asked Otto.

"Give it up," said I.

"I wish we had too," said Otto; "there was nothing on the far side but
another glacier."

Perhaps, the literary critics will help me decide if Otto meant this
for the parable of the climber or whether he was only singularly adept
in the art of suggestion.

You do not see Mount Robson till you have passed by. Our train stops
to let us look aright, but cloud curtains obscure the turrets of this
great temple of stone. Like a sorrowful Caryatid it stands erect under
the burden of the sky. But, after awhile, the veil is rent asunder and
a tingling flood of light spills itself on the snow in blurs of garnet
and blue and gold which scintillate and blend like the colours of a
shell: Of a surety, the North has the alchemy that transmutes base
metals into gold.

What else may one see at Robson in this dream of summer Canada? Come
near till I whisper! You may see white horses--and roan--and chariots
of fire, but not every one can. This is one of the mountain's secrets.

And if you listen you may hear what the hills talk about, but you must
listen. One mountain who is not so solemn as you migh