, and make tea. But
although the day had dawned and the sun risen, the light was feeble, and
the elder guide shook his head ominously.

'Indeed,' said he, 'it won't be much use to go on up, for the Haystack
looks so blue that _durn'd_ haze must have come back again, and you'll
have no view from _Mercy_ to-day.'

'Well, it can't be helped, but we'll try it anyhow!' was the unanimous
response.

We were a mile and a half from the top of Tahawus, having already
entered the great belt of spruce encircling the middle regions of the
mountain, and having left behind all deciduous trees except a few
birches. The forest here is especially grand, the original wood still
remaining, tall, wide of girth, dark, and sturdy. The girdled trees
standing near our camp looked at us reproachfully in the morning light;
ten giants doomed to death to furnish a night's covering to six pigmies!
Our fires, too, were they safe, or might they not run along the
inflammable turf and perhaps destroy acres of beautiful, precious
timber?

But time pressed, 'the dishes were washed,' and we must away. All the
heavy articles were left in the camp, and nothing taken up with us
except a light lunch, a canteen of water, and the shawls needed to
protect against the winds on the top. The little stream crossed, the
ascent began quite steeply. A half mile of walking brought us out of the
wood, and to the foot of the great slide, a bare, sloping rock, some
thousand feet in height. Up this slide, either on the rock, or beside
it, through the bushes and the spruce trees, which soon become low and
shrubby, leads the pathway, not difficult, but somewhat fatiguing, from
its steepness. Indeed, the whole way up is so excellent one wonders so
high a mountain can be ascended with so little exertion or actual
climbing. In places, the moss is some, six inches thick, and the feet,
worn with stony ways, sink into it as if there to find lasting repose;
but _Excelsior_ is the cry, and the top of the slide the next goal to be
won.

Meantime the haze had been turning into mist, and great clouds were
gathering on the bare, rocky head of the mountain. The slide passed, the
path winds through dense, low spruce growth, and, the last steep cliffs
gradually overcome, the extreme limit of tree vegetation (four thousand
eight hundred feet) is passed, and the remaining rocky slope offers no
growth except a few hardy plants, such as sandwort, grasses, and several
varieties of moss and