th this aid the ascent was
difficult.

The rocks were rough, hard and sharp at the edges and corners, yet they
climbed on and on. Each succeeding ledge to which they mounted grew
narrower until scarce room for the foot could be found.

When the plateau was gained, it was but a bleak, desolate plain of four
or five acres of uneven ground, swept by the winds of eternal winter and
presenting a drear and melancholy aspect.

[Illustration: "OUR JOURNEY IS NOT ONE-HALF OVER."]

Close under a stone they sat down to partake of the noonday meal,
listening to the shrill winds sweeping over the dreary waste and gazed
at the cloud-capped peak above. The only cheerful object was a noisy
cataract thundering down the mountain, fed by the melting snows.

"Do you feel equal to the task?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Our journey is not one-half over."

"I know it."

"And the last half will be more trying than the first."

"I will go with you," she answered cheerfully.

To one living in a mountainless country the difficulties and fatigues of
mountain scaling is unknown. An ascent, which, to the unpractised cliff
climber, might seem the work of an hour, will consume an entire day.

Having finished their meal, they resumed the upward march. Reaching a
small cluster of stunted and gnarled pines, they pressed through it and
emerged on a great, bleak hillside, almost bare of vegetation. Only here
and there grew a tuft of stunted grass or a dwarfed shrub. The temperate
zone had given way to the regions of eternal winter. Again and again
they were compelled to pause for breath.

"Here it is," John cried, almost gleefully, as a snow-flake fell on his
arm.

A little further up, they found snow drifted under a ledge of the rock,
while little rivulets, running from the melting snow, joined mountain
torrents and cataracts that thundered down below. At last the great
summit was gained, and they paused to gaze afar on the land and sea
below. John drew his glass and swept the horizon. The slight clouds,
from which an occasional flake had fallen, cleared away at sunset, and
they had an excellent view as far as the eye could reach.

"Do you see any sail?" she asked.

"None."

"Then we must be in an ocean as unexplored and unknown as the great
south sea which Balboa discovered."

"I know not where we are."

The sun set, dipping into the sea and leaving a great, broad
phosphorescent light where it disappeared, which broadened and radiated
t