Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/22

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THE MOUNTAIN OF FEARS

Both held hearts of steel; they were the most quietly courageous men that I have ever known. I ask you to remember this, Doctor, in consideration of what came later. Their courage had been tried and proved in many desperate situations . . . Ach!" Leyden began to mutter again, shaping his thoughts with his tongue until I could with difficulty catch this thought—"the filament—the neuron—cut the sympathetic nerve in the neck of a horse and the animal begins to sweat upon the affected side; puncture the floor of the fourth ventricle of a dog—diabetes." He raised his voice. "There is a little center of thermogenesis, is there not, Doctor, the irritation of which will raise the temperature——

"We wandered through this shadow-land, this illusory place of promise whose inhabitants were ofttimes starving. Cannibals?—yes; many white men have been that through acute starvation; chronic only tends to confirm the vice. They were a strange, shy,

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