nse allowed them. Although M.
Moriaz was both corpulent and inclined to be absent-minded, he plunged
into more than one quagmire without sticking fast, more than one marsh
without having his progress impeded.

One morning he conceived the project of climbing up as high as a certain
fortress of mountains whose battlements overhang a forest of pine and
larch trees. He was not yet sufficiently accustomed to the mountains to
realize how deceptive distances become there. After having drained two
glasses of the chalybeate waters, and breakfasted heartily, he set out,
crossed the Inn, and began the ascent to the forest. The slope grew more
and more abrupt, and ere long he discovered that he had wandered from
the foot-path. He was not one to be easily disheartened; he continued
climbing, laying hold of the brushwood with his hands, planting his
feet among perfidious pine-needles, which form a carpet as smooth as
a mirror, making three steps forward and two backward. Great drops of
perspiration started out on his brow, and he sat down for a moment to
wipe them away, hoping that some wood-cutter might appear and show
him the way back to the path, if there was one. But no human soul came
within sight; and plucking up his courage again he resumed the ascent,
until he had nearly reached a breastwork of rock, in which he vainly
sought an opening. He was about retracing his steps when he remembered
that from the gallery of the hotel he had observed this breastwork
of reddish rock, and it seemed to him that he remembered also that it
formed the buttress of the mountain-stronghold of which he was in quest;
and so he concluded that this would be the last obstacle he would have
to overcome. He thought that it would be actually humiliating to be
so near the goal and yet renounce it. The rock, worn by the frost,
presented sundry crevices and indentures, forming a natural stairway.
Arming himself with all his strength, and making free use of his nails,
he undertook to scale it, and in five minutes had gained a sort of
plateau, which, unluckily for him, he found to be commanded by a smooth
granite wall of a fearful height. The only satisfactory procedure for
him now was to return whence he had come; but in these perilous passages
to ascend is easier than to descend; it being impossible to choose one's
steps, descent might lead to a rather undesirable adventure. M. Moriaz
did not dare to risk this adventure.

He walked the whole length of the