Rousse was gifted with
one of those long, India rubber necks that can stretch out
indefinitely, so that the utmost pulling and jerking only took his
head along a little farther, but left his heels planted exactly here
they were before, somewhat after this fashion. His eyes, meanwhile,
devoutly closed, with an air of meekness overspreading his visage, he
might have stood as an emblem of conscientious obstinacy.
[Illustration: _of two men trying to force forward a stubborn mule with
a female rider._]
The fact is, that in ascending these mountains there is just enough
danger to make one's nerves a little unsteady; not by any means as
much as on board a rail car at home; still it comes to you in a more
demonstrable form. Here you are, for instance, on a precipice two
thousand feet deep; pine trees, which, when you passed them at the
foot you saw were a hundred feet high, have dwindled to the size of
pins. No barrier of any kind protects the dizzy edge, and your mule is
particularly conscientious to stand on the very verge, no matter how
wide the path may be. Now, under such circumstances, though your guide
assures you that an accident or a person killed is a thing unknown,
you cannot help seeing that if the saddle should turn, or the girths
break, or a bit of the crumbling edge cave away--all which things
appear quite possible--all would be over with you.
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