178 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
would not smile even gruesomely. It was mad. 
By and by I was mad too. I was skinned. I 
am bleeding, and various parts of my anatomy 
are out of fix, and I am at the bottom of the 
tree instead of up in the tree branches where 
the mistletoe clusters. I had slid down; I had 
bumped hard. I had been nearly up though 
slowly, and had come totally down not exactly 
rapidly but with a speed of electricity and with- 
out interruption and no one to see it! O the 
wicked waste of fun. After several unsuccessful at- 
tempts at anabasis and other sundry extemporized 
and highly successful katabases I was winded and 
skinned, with pantaloons rent in sundry places (but 
they were ripped before). Iam no lackwit whatever 
the cottonwood tree thought, and had brought 
pantaloons—survivors of other climbing episodes. 
They were old climbers as well as old timers. 
As I sat on the ground in unhesitant fashion 
where I had been deposited by the force of 
gravitation and the surly mood of the cottonwood 
tree, I bethought me of my beefsteak and loaf 
of bread and pinch of salt. Happy thought. 
I will increase my strength and might by cooking 
and eating my edibles, and then, probably, bring- 
ing up a heavier attack, I shall take the citadel. 
So I fished out my matches, gathered some 
glorious wolf-brown leaves together, some dead 
cottonwood branches strewn about, struck the 
match, saw the match flame catch to the leaves 
and the leaf flame grow ardent and the branches 
