Naturally, my friends and I laughed at such a naïve superstition. Yet when I proposed that we climb the mountain and seek the home of the "Ibandru," our guides repeated their warning that these people were powerful and evil-minded enchanters. And when, not to be daunted by fairy tales, I insisted on investigating the mountain top, the natives betrayed their alarm by their rolling dark eyes and eloquent gestures, and swore that if we ever began the climb we should be unable to return. Scores of their countrymen had been bewitched and lost in seeking the peak, which was known as "The Mountain of Vanished Men"; and for their own part, they would sooner wrestle with tigers than lead us up the slopes. There was no arguing the point--they were beyond reason. Nevertheless, in the face of common sense, I could not be contented. From the beginning, that womanlike image had taken hold of my imagination; and, far from discouraging me, the fears and protestations of the natives had only whetted my curiosity. Should opportunity offer, I would scale the mountain and discover for myself if there was any excuse for that terror which the stone figure aroused in the Afghans. The opportunity, unfortunately, was not long in coming. That evening we pitched camp among the pines at the base of "The Mountain of Vanished Men." Since the site was ideally located at the brink of a clear-bubbling rivulet, and since several of us were exhausted from our strenuous traveling, we decided to remain for a day or two before continuing toward the northern gorges. Next morning I urged that, whether with guides or without, several of the men join me in a climb to the stone image. The ascent, I pointed out, promised to be easy enough, for the mountain showed a long even grade that rarely approached the perpendicular; and, in the absence of undetected glaciers or ravines, there would be nothing to keep us from the peak. I was even so confident as to assert that, starting shortly after dawn, we would set foot on the summit and be back in camp by evening. Most of my comrades were not convinced. They swore that it would be foolhardy to entrust ourselves to this unknown wilderness; they painted in gruesome terms the danger of being lost, and the still greater danger from wild beasts, rock slides, and crevasses in the snow and ice; and they scoffed when I vowed that I would go alone if no one would accompany me.