Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/27

  me that a cold draught struck down from the heights.

The Mountain of Fears,' said I—'the Mountain of Fears,' and as I stared at the monster on whose bristling hide we planned to crawl, parasites, searching for a spot to lodge our stings, the first shadow of foreboding swept over my spirits, just as the swift shadow had risen to throw its cold, blue light across the snowy quartz-field.

"In the valley we found the first signs of plenty; there were fruit and game and a sort of wild yam in abundance; and here we decided to rest for several days on the edge of the stream, for MacFarlane had a suppurating heel where he had trod upon a thorn, and Vinckers was suffering from a great nettle-rash upon his body. All three of us were hungry and our blood ran too thin to encounter the cold nights higher up the slope.

"We camped in a grove of trees which looked like the papaya and bore a fruit unlike any I have ever seen. It was shaped like an [ 11 ]