climb.

"I suppose you want to go up by the road," said my companion.

"Oh no," I answered, "we won't go so far around as that. There is a
path up this side, along which I have seen men driving their goats.
I prefer to take that."

"All right, if you say so," he answered, with a smile; "but you'll
find it pretty tough."

After a time he remarked:

"I wouldn't walk so fast, if I were you."

"Oh, I like to step along briskly," I said. And briskly on we went.

My wife had screwed up the machine in the knapsack more than usual,
and walking seemed scarcely any effort at all. I carried a long
alpenstock, and when we reached the mountain and began the ascent, I
found that with the help of this and my knapsack I could go uphill
at a wonderful rate. My companion had taken the lead, so as to show
me how to climb. Making a _detour_ over some rocks, I quickly passed
him and went ahead. After that it was impossible for him to keep up
with me. I ran up steep places, I cut off the windings of the path
by lightly clambering over rocks, and even when I followed the
beaten track my step was as rapid as if I had been walking on level
ground.

"Look here!" shouted the Alpine Club man from below, "you'll kill
yourself if you go at that rate! That's no way to climb mountains."

"It's my way!" I cried. And on I skipped.

Twenty minutes after I arrived at the summit my companion joined me,
puffing, and wiping his red face with his handkerchief.

"Confound it!" he cried, "I never came up a mountain so fast in my
life."

"You need not have hurried," I said, coolly.

"I was afraid something would happen to you," he growled, "and I
wanted to stop you. I never saw a person climb in such an utterly
absurd way."

"I don't see why you should call it absurd," I said, smiling with an
air of superiority. "I arrived here in a perfectly comfortable
condition, neither heated nor wearied."

He made no answer, but walked off to a little distance, fanning
himself with his hat and growling words which I did not catch. After
a time I proposed to descend.

"You must be careful as you go down," he said. "It is much more
dangerous to go down steep places than to climb up."

"I am always prudent," I answered, and started in advance. I found
the descent of the mountain much more pleasant than the ascent. It
was positively exhilarating. I jumped from rocks and bluffs eight
and ten feet in height, and touched the ground as gently as if I had
st