hour and many a day, and cost him many a
wet skin--by perspiration, I mean--before he had completed the boring of
those four hundred holes. Numerous were the tears drawn from the eyes
of the plant-hunter--not by grief, but by the smoke of the seething
cedar wood.

When Karl had finished the peculiar task he had thus assigned to
himself, but little more remained to be done--only to set each pair of
sides together, stick in the rounds, bind fast at each end, and there
was a ladder finished and ready to be scaled.

One by one they were thus turned off; and one by one earned to the foot
of the cliff, up which the ascent was to be _attempted_.

Sad are we to say that it was still only an attempt; and sadder yet that
that attempt proved a failure.

One by one were the ladders raised to their respective ledges--until
three-fourths of the cliff had been successfully scaled. Here, alas!
was their climbing brought to a conclusion, by a circumstance up to this
time unforeseen. On reaching one of the ledges--the fourth from the top
of the cliff--they found, to their chagrin, that the rock above it,
instead of receding a little, as with all the others, _hung over_--
projecting several inches beyond the outer line of the ledge. Against
that rock no ladder could have been set; none would have rested there--
since it could not be placed even perpendicularly. There was no attempt
made to take one up. Though the projection could not be discerned from
below, Karl, standing on the topmost round of the last ladder that had
been planted, saw at once, with the eye of an engineer, that the
difficulty was insurmountable. It would be as easy for them to fly, is
to stand a ladder upon that ill-starred ledge; and with this conviction
fully impressed upon his mind, the young plant-hunter returned slowly
and sorrowfully to the ground to communicate the disagreeable
intelligence to his companions.

It was no use for either Caspar or Ossaroo to go up again. They had
been on the ledge already; and had arrived at the same conviction.
Karl's report was final and conclusive.

All their ingenuity defeated--all their toil gone for nothing--their
time wasted--their hopes blighted--the bright sky of their future once
more obscured with darkest clouds--all through that unforeseen
circumstance.

Just as when they returned out of the cavern--after that patient but
fruitless search--just as then, sate they down upon the rocks--each
staggering to