But when the ascent actually began, I was not at all certain that I should survive. We seemed to be undertaking the impossible; I had, literally, to be lifted off my feet and carried; my legs were useful only on the short stretches of comparatively level ground. In the humiliation of being an invalid, I felt a deep sense of inferiority to these brawny men that tugged and strained to bear me up the mountain; while, with increasing admiration, I noted the capable way in which they carried me along the brink of canyons, or over grades that I should have had to make on my hands and knees. But greatest of all was my admiration for the young girl who had offered me the dried herbs. She seemed agile as a leopard and sure-footed as a mountain sheep, leaping from boulder to boulder and from crag to crag with the swiftness and abandon of a joyous wild thing.... Hours--how many I cannot estimate--must have been consumed in the ascent. Fortunately, I am not a large man, being but five feet six in height and considerably under the average weight; but, even so, I proved more than an ordinary burden. Though my rescuers worked in shifts and each seemed powerful enough to carry me single-handed, yet before long the exertion began to tell upon them all. Occasionally, after completing some precipitous ascent, they would pause to mop their brows and rest; or else their bulging eyes and panting frames would testify to the ordeal they were undergoing. Higher and higher we mounted, while they showed no thought of abandoning their efforts. In joy not unmixed with a half-superstitious dread, I saw the statuesque figure on the peak slowly approaching; saw its outlines expand until it seemed but a mile away, clad in a somber gray and beckoning like some idol superbly carved by a race of Titans. But while I was asking myself whether we were to climb to the very foot of this image, I observed that we were following a little trail which no longer ascended but wound sinuously about the mountainside. For what seemed time unending we plodded along this path, while in my weakness I was more than once close to fainting. But, as we jogged ahead, the scenery was gradually changing; from time to time I caught glimpses of far-off snowy peaks and a deep basin north of "The Mountain of Vanished Men." It was long before this valley stretched before us in an unbroken panorama; but when I saw it entire it was enough to make me forget my sufferings.