ent, but turn out to be rugged and
seamy and full of rocks with sharp corners on them at about the height
of the average human knee or shin. The lady for whom that mountain in
Mexico, Chapultepec, is named--oh, yes, Miss Anna Peck--would have had a
perfectly lovely time scaling that mountain; but I didn't.

[Illustration: "HE COULD BEAT ME CLIMBING, BUT AT PANTING I HAD HIM
LICKED TO A WHISPER"]

After we had climbed upward at an acute angle for several hundred
miles--my companion said yards, but I know better; it was miles--I threw
myself prone upon the softer surfaces of a large granite slab, feeling
that I could go no farther. I also wished to have plenty of room in
which to pant. He could beat me climbing, but at panting I had him
licked to a whisper. He was a person without sympathy. In his bosom the
milk of human kindness had clabbered and turned to a brick-cheese. He
stood there and laughed. There are times to laugh, but this was not one
of the times. Anyway I always did despise those people who are built
like sounding boards and have fine acoustic qualities inside their
heads--and not much of anything else; but never did I despise them more
than at that moment. He sent his grating, raucous, discordant, ill-timed
guffaws reverberating off among the precipitous crags, and then he
turned from me and went forging ahead.

He was almost out of sight when I remembered about there being bears on
that mountain; so I rose and undertook to forge ahead too. I was not a
great success at it however. I know now that if ever I should turn to a
life of crime forgery would not be my forte. I do not forge readily.
Eventually, though, I reached the summit, he being already there. We had
come up for the view, but I seemed to have lost my interest in views;
so, while he looked at the view, I reclined in a prostrate position and
resumed panting. That was three years ago and I am still somewhat behind
with my pants. I am going to take a week off sometime and pant steadily
and try to catch up; but the outing taught me one thing--I learned a
simple way of descending a steep mountain. If one is of a circular style
of construction it is very simple. One rolls.

Camping is highly spoken of, and I have tried camping a number of times.
When I go camping it rains. It begins to rain when I start and it keeps
on raining until I come back. It never fails. I have often thought that
drought-sufferers in various parts of the country who seek to a