38 The Mountaineer 
ing that they would try to send up somebody who would like 
to climb the peak, while I waited a week in camp, taking care 
of the unlucky chopper and hoping against hope. And it rained 
almost continuously in the valley—and snowed on the moun- 
tains! 
At last, on August 10, the weather cleared beautifully, 
and the little angels who preside over the destinies of suffi- 
ciently persistent mountaineers—and other mortals—smiled. 
Towards evening, the jineline of bells told me that the horse 
trail to our camp had been completed, and Frank Butterfield, 
superintendent of the Starbird ranch, with Jack Poorman, of 
Idaho, a trail-cutter, and Mitchell Coffin, of Brooklyn, appeared 
on the scene. 
The hoodoo was broken. Five o'clock the next morning 
saw Coffin, Poorman, and myself well on our way up the glacier, 
Butterfield being unable to join us beeause another trail-cutter 
had been injured and had to be taken down into the valley. 
The fates never granted more beautiful weather for elimb- 
ine—although I was afraid our magic three meght be broken 
when twelve goats gazed simultaneously down upon us from 
a neighboring hillside and sane their Lorelei sone to Poorman, 
who was tempted to go back and get his gun. 
We managed to avoid actually getting into crevasses in 
the glacier and switchback, although occasionally a leg would 
disappear, and some anchoring and broad jumping was neces- 
sary; but the most study was required on the final sharp rise 
to the summit. A week’s heavy fresh snow covered the old ice 
and snow on the steep slope, increasing the danger from 
avalanches, and in negotiating the slope bad cross crevasses 
“olory holes,” as Jack called them—had to be dealt with. For- 
tunately, however, the new snow had avalanehed almost from 
the top in a narrow strip, and we zigzagged in and close to 
this strip, made good steps and kept the rope taut. Above us, 
too, slightly to the right as we neared the top, was a projecting 
hummock which would probably have divided an avalanche 
from above, and we could, if threatened, quickly line up below 
it and brace. But nothing untoward occurred. Even the final 
bergeschrund, which we thought might cause us some work 
and study, and which we were prepared to go down into and 
up the other side, offered a splinter of a bridge which bore us 
safely across; and, surmounting the final 15 or 20-foot vertical 
