32 The Mountaineer 
itself. So the answer came from that restless spirit of conquest, 
which urges us ever onward to the accomplishment of our 
destiny, to the ever narrowing confines of the land of the un- 
known. 
A shout of triumph echoes through the mountain fastness, 
a passage has been discovered. True the way is dangerous, but 
it leads to success and what else matters? One portion con- 
formed much too closely in general contour to the inverted let- 
ter V and for a while we experienced a most unseemly envy of - 
the fly and his various appliances designed for sticking fast. 
Moreover, to give additional comfort, nature had flanked us 
with two beautiful and very commodious crevasses, the whole 
furnishing a short and slippery path to that country of golden 
harps and milk and honey; the praises of which are so often 
sung by those who have never crossed its confines, and into 
the realms of which we are so eager that the other fellow should 
enter. A snow bridge crossed, we approached the upper levels 
of that graceful, dazzling sweep known as the saddle, guarded 
by Columbia Crest and Russell Peak. Here the slopes were less 
precipitous and the snow softer, due probably to recent falls. 
The hour hand (also the inner man) now indicated one o’clock 
and we began anxiously to peer about for the celebrated steam 
caves promised us by Professor Flett. I fail to recall the pre- 
vailing idea entertained of those apartments, but our doughty 
leader had hinted of hissing steam and sulphurous gases, so 
we expected a large and commanding archway bearing the 
celebrated legend; mayhap a little devil to receive wraps and 
a hot lunch seasoned a la Mexicano. 
Sad disillusionment! We scrambled, or fell, through a 
jagged opening in the ice erust into a spooky cavern most 
comfortably warm and so moist with the condensing steam that 
our clothes were soon bedewed with glistening drops. Sure 
enough the steam was escaping in jets through various open- 
ings among the rocks and we had the unique and most enjoy- 
able experience of scraping the snow with tin cups from the 
roof of our house, placing in the icy mixture a cube of con- 
densed bouillon, putting the utensil on the floor over a jet of 
escaping steam, and in five minutes detecting with eager nostril 
the delicious aroma of boiling beef tea. And this at an eleva- 
tion of fourteen thousand feet, under the eternal snows of Mt. 
Rainier. While perched upon a warm rock munching a most 
