k and home. In return for our "keep" we sang
that night, and told stories of the west, and our hosts seemed pleased
with the exchange. Shouldering our faithful "grips" next morning, we
started for the railway and took the train for Gorham.

Each mile brought us nearer the climax of our trip. We of the plains had
longed and dreamed of the peaks. To us the White Mountains were at once
the crowning wonder and chief peril of our expedition. They were to be
in a very real sense the test of our courage. The iron crest of Mount
Washington allured us as a light-house lures sea-birds.

Leaving Gorham on foot, and carrying our inseparable valises, we started
westward along the road leading to the peaks, expecting to get lodging
at some farm-house, but as we stood aside to let gay coaches pass laden
with glittering women and haughty men, we began to feel abused.

We were indeed, quaint objects. Each of us wore a long yellow linen
"duster" and each bore a valise on a stick, as an Irishman carries a
bundle. We feared neither wind nor rain, but wealth and coaches
oppressed us.

Nevertheless we trudged cheerily along, drinking at the beautiful
springs beside the road, plucking blackberries for refreshment, lifting
our eyes often to the snow-flecked peaks to the west. At noon we stopped
at a small cottage to get some milk, and there again met a pathetic
lonely old couple. The woman was at least eighty, and very crusty with
her visitors, till I began to pet the enormous maltese cat which came
purring to our feet. "What a magnificent animal!" I said to Frank.

This softened the old woman's heart. She not only gave us bread and milk
but sat down to gossip with us while we ate. She, too, had relatives
"out there, somewhere in Iowa" and would hardly let us go, so eager was
she to know all about her people. "Surely you must have met them."

As we neared the foot of the great peak we came upon hotels of all sizes
but I had not the slightest notion of staying even at the smallest.
Having walked twelve miles to the foot of the mountain we now decided to
set out for the top, still carrying those precious bags upon our
shoulders.

What we expected to do after we got to the summit, I cannot say, for we
knew nothing of conditions there and were too tired to imagine--we just
kept climbing, sturdily, doggedly, breathing heavily, more with
excitement than with labor, for it seemed that we were approaching the
moon,--so bleak and high the roadwa