MOUNT RAINIER 



laboratories. I lapped, an excellent test of pluck 

 in the days of Gideon son of Barak ; and why ? 

 For many reasons, but among them for this ; he 

 who lying prone can with stout muscular gullet swallow 

 water, will be also able to swallow back into position 

 his heart, when in moments of tremor it leaps into his 

 throat. 



When I had lapped plenteously, I lay and let the 

 breeze-shaken shadows smooth me into smiling mood, 

 while my sympathies overflowed to enjoy with my 

 horses their dinner. They fed like school-boys home 

 for Thanksgiving, in haste lest the present banquet, 

 too good to be true, prove Barmecide. A feast of 

 colossal grasses placed itself at the lips of the break- 

 fastless stud. They champed as their nature was ; - 

 Klale like a hungry gentleman, Gubbins like a 

 hungry clodhopper, Antipodes like a lubberly oaf. 

 They were laying in, according to the Hudson's Bay 

 Company's rule, supply at this meal for five days ; 

 without such power, neither man nor horse is fit to 

 tramp the Northwest. 



I lay on the beautiful verdant bank, plucking now 

 dextrously and now sinistrously of strawberries, that 

 summer, climbing late to these snowy heights, had just 

 ripened. Medical men command us to swallow twice 

 a day one bitter pill confectioned of all disgust. Nature 

 doses us, by no means against our will, with many 

 sweet boluses of delight, berries compacted of acidu- 

 lated, sugary spiciness. Nature, tenderest of leeches, 

 no bolus of hers is pleasanter medicament than her 

 ruddy strawberries. She shaped them like Minie- 

 balls, that they might traverse unerringly to the cell 

 of most dulcet digestion. Over their glistening sur- 

 faces she peppered little golden dots to act as obstacles 

 lest they should glide too fleetly over the surfaces of 

 taste, and also to gently rasp them into keener sensi- 

 tiveness. Mongers of pestled poisons may punch their 

 pills in malodorous mortars, roll them in floury palms, 



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