I feel equal to anything." And now we have to travel once more in single file, for the path runs along a mountain spur almost as perpendicular as a wall; we are between two precipices, down which even the boldest cannot look without a shudder.
The incline, moreover, is rapid, and from time to time we come to places where the ridge is so broken and insecure that we have to dismount, let our mules go first, and creep after them on our hands.
At the head of the file is an Indian who rides the _madrina_ (a mare) and acts as guide, next come Gondocori, myself and Gahra, followed by the other mounted Indians, three or four baggage-mules, and two men on foot.
We have been going thus nearly an hour, when a sudden and portentous change sets in.

Murky clouds gather round the higher summits and shut out the sun, a thick mist settles down on the ridge, and in a few minutes we are folded in a gloom hardly less dense than midnight darkness.
"Halt!" shouts the guide.
"What shall we do ?" I ask the cacique, whom, though he is but two yards from me, I cannot see.
"Nothing.

We can only wait here till the mist clears away," he shouts in a muffled voice.
"And how soon may that be ?" "_Quien Sabe ?_ Perhaps a few minutes, perhaps hours." Hours! To stand for hours, even for one hour, immovable in that mist on that ridge would be death.

Since the sun disappeared the cold had become keener than ever.

The blood seems to be freezing in my veins, my beard is a block of ice, icicles are forming on my eyelids.
If this goes on--a gleam of light! Thank Heaven, the mist is lifting, just enough to enable me to see Gondocori and the guide.