BALD PEAKS AND GREEN VALES 57 



up to the next bend in the track ? By a prodigious 

 effort I did this at last it seemed " at last " to me, at 

 all events and, lo ! there gleamed before me another 

 long stretch of four steel rails. 



My breath came shorter and shorter, until I was 

 compelled to open my mouth widely and gasp the cold, 

 rarefied air, which, it seemed, would not fill my chest 

 with the needed oxygen. Sharp pains shot through my 

 lungs, especially in the extremities far down in the 

 chest; my head and eye-balls ached, and it seemed 

 sometimes as if they would burst ; my limbs trembled 

 with weakness, and I tottered and reeled like a drunken 

 man from side to side of the road, having to watch 

 carefully lest I might topple over the edge and meet 

 with a serious accident. Still that relentless track, 

 with its quartette of steel rails, stretched steep before 

 me in the distance. 



For the last half mile or more I was compelled to 

 fling myself down upon the track every few rods to rest 

 and recover breath. Up, up, the road climbed, until at 

 length I reached the point where it ceases to swing 

 around the shoulders of the mountain, and ascends 

 directly to the summit. Here was the steepest climb 

 of all. By throwing my weary frame on the track at 

 frequent intervals and resting for five minutes, taking 

 deep draughts of air between my parched lips, I at last 

 came in sight of the government building. It is neither 



