Up Sterling 



tance, gave the slope and ridge of Sterling 

 such a dark and bristling aspect. They 

 were not large not more than thirty feet 

 high on the average but sturdy, large- 

 limbed, and thickly set, good types of moun 

 tain trees, which always give the impression 

 of tremendous vitality and endurance 

 rooted among the everlasting rocks for more 

 than a century's vigorous life. 



On and up I clambered, sometimes 

 squeezing through a narrow cleft in a ledge 

 and scaling the treacherous pathway of 

 broken rock within, sometimes drawing my 

 self up a steep slope by overhanging boughs 

 or shrubs, sometimes digging toes and fin 

 gers into the mold threaded with rootlets 

 of underbrush, and struggling on hands and 

 knees up to a vantage-ground where I could 

 rest and catch my breath. I was thankful 

 that it was too late in the season for tor 

 menting mosquitoes and black flies, though 

 the aggravating, invisible midges still tor 

 tured me with their burning bites. How 

 ever, these pests do not drive one crazy, 

 like a swarm of shrill-humming mosquitoes. 

 If I had tried to scale that tangled slope in 



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