78 CAMP-FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



As nearly as I can estimate, we climbed more than 

 a mile, at an angle that for the upper half of the dis- 

 tance was about 30 degrees, — a very steep ascent At 

 first our way up led through green timber, over smooth 

 ground that was carpeted with needles of spruce and 

 pine. That was comparatively easy, — no more difficult, 

 in fact, than climbing the stairs of four Washington 

 monuments set one upon another. 



At climbing steep mountains, Mr. Phillips, Charlie 

 Smith and the two Norboes are perfect fiends. They 

 are thin, tough and long-winded, and being each of them 

 fully forty pounds under my weight, I made no pretence 

 at trying to keep up with them. As it is in an English 

 workshop, the slowest workman set the pace. 



In hard climbing, almost every Atlantic-coast man 

 perspires freely, and is very extravagant in the use of air. 

 It frequently happened that when half way up a high 

 mountain, my lungs consumed the air so rapidly that a 

 vacuum was created around me, and I would have to 

 stop and wait for a new supply of oxygen to blow along. 

 My legs behaved much better than my lungs, and to their 

 credit be it said that they never stopped work until my 

 lungs ran out of steam. 



As I toiled up that long slope, I thought of a funny 

 little engine that I saw in Borneo, pulling cars over an 

 absurd wooden railway that ran from the bank of the 

 Sadong River to the coal-mines. It would run about a 

 mile at a very good clip, then suddenly cease puffing, 

 and stop. Old Walters, the superintendent, said: 



"There's only one thing ails that bally engine. 



