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CHAPTER XV.

TURN TO THE RIGHT AS THE LAW DIRECTS.

NOTHER danger lies in getting too low down on the hillside to the sea. On that side, where only grass has grown and pine-quills fallen without any undergrowth to hold them there, and con tribute its own decaying and cast-off clothes to the soil, the ground is often broken, and, unlike the north side of the hills, shows here and there steep bluffs and impassable, basaltic blocks, or slides of slate or shale on which it would be madness to venture.

The only safe thing to do is to find the summit, and keep along the backbone of the mountain, and thus escape the chapparal nets of the north and the precipices of the south.

Great skill consists in being able to reach the summit successfully, and still greater in keeping along the backbone when it is once reached, and not follow off on one of the spurs that ofte