Suddenly, and when he had rolled two of the three balls at the defiant pins, Rowan stopped short with one of the lignum-vitæ globes, of about the size of a human head, in his hand--twirling it the while as if it had been a paper balloon,--and said, in a short, curt tone: "They have come!" "Yes," answered Townsend, not pretending for a moment to be doubtful about the meaning of the personal pronoun. "Yes, I saw them at supper." "Going up with us to-morrow, I believe!" added the Illinoisan. "Ah, indeed, are they?" was the jesuitical inquiry of the lawyer. "Yes, and they will have good company, won't they!" was the response. Then he bowled away at the ten-pins, more energetically than ever, and with something in his manner and the nervous jerk of his arm, that once more recalled Townsend's idea of his feeling, while in the act, like shooting some one down a mountain precipice like a pebble-stone, or sweeping away a fate like a cobweb with one of those polished globes of iron wood. Only a couple of games, and then they went in to bed with a mutual reminder that the motto in the morning would be "to horse and away!" and that above all things they must be watchful against that phase of indolence vulgarly known as "oversleeping." The house was nearly silent, all the prospective riders having retired for the night, and soon slumber fell upon that hive of human bees wandering in search of the honey of unlaboring pleasure, gathered under the roof of Gibb and Hartshorne at the Crawford. Fell, but not too deeply, for that which is to be brief has a right to be intense; and the hours of repose were relentlessly numbered. Neither Townsend nor Rowan need have been anxious about waking in the morning; for such a blast and roar of horrible sound as swept through the corridor at about seven, A. M., from the big Chinese gong in the hands of an enthusiastic negro who probably felt that he had no other opportunity of making his requisite "noise in the world," would have been sufficient to awaken any thing short of the dead! For once, every one obeyed the summons while anathematizing the mode, and the breakfast-table was soon surrounded. Here, those who labored under some kind of indefinite impression that the summit of Mount Washington was somewhere beyond the Desert of Arabia--that nothing eatable or drinkable could ever be discovered on its top--and that the more they ate the better able they would be to endure the fatigue of the ascent,--made vigorous attacks on the steaks, eggs and chickens, and drank coffee, milk and cold water without limit. Those better advised (and the fact is here set down as a bit of practical experience worth heeding),--those who knew the painful effect of attempting to climb a mountain when gorged to repletion (the traveller, not the mountain--the mountain is always full of "gorges")--those, we say, confined themselves to an egg or two and a small slice of rare steak, and drank lightly.