John shot one. The report of his musket in this lofty region was so slight as to be heard but a short distance, but the birds, soaring aloft, screamed with fear and went still higher up the mountain sides. Here they found squirrels more abundant than in the valley. The oaks and hickory trees bore an abundance of nuts for them. Further on the nut-bearing trees gave place to grass, and they found themselves on a sloping plain. Every hour seemed bringing them to new and unexplored regions. Old Snow-Top, as they called the mountain, contained wonders. The trees had dwindled to dwarfs, and the animals degenerated in proportion. Some fur-bearing animals were found in these lofty regions, and the eyrie of the eagle was in the cold, dark cliffs. There was a perceptible change in the climate. The clothing suitable for the valley was uncomfortably light in this region. "Blanche, are you cold?" he asked. She, smiling, answered: "Never mind me, I can stand it." "The air is chill." "It always is so in ascending a lofty mountain." "The ascent is more difficult than I supposed; behold the cliff before us!" "I see it." "It seems almost perpendicular." "So it does." "I see no way to scale it from here." "Yet, like all other ills in this world, the difficulties may disappear at our approach." When they advanced toward the cliff, fully two hundred feet in height, a narrow rocky slope was seen ascending on the left, like a flight of winding stairs, to the plateau above. Even with 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.