Slone toiled up for an hour--an age--till he was wet, burning, choked, with a great weight on his chest.

Yet still he was only half-way up that awful break between the walls.

Sometimes he could have tossed a stone down upon a part of the trail, only a few rods below, yet many, many weary steps of actual toil.

As he got farther up the notch widened.

What had been scarcely visible from the valley below was now colossal in actual dimensions.