A COLD CAMP. 201 



spur we stood on joined the main chain, there appeared to 

 be a few scattered pine-trees ^growing a little way down in 

 the angle formed by the junction, and I decided to push on 

 to them, hoping to find a dead one that would serve for 

 firing, and there to wait for morning. 



" Our chief danger was the chance of a wind rising, for the 

 snow around us was at too great an elevation to have been 

 affected by the warmth of the sun, and having never been 

 melted, had of course never frozen together, but lay so loose 

 and light that the slightest puff of wind whirled it about ; 

 should therefore a mountain gust once set it going, our peril 

 would be extreme. 



"I thought we should never arrive at those pine-trees. 

 The snow got deeper and looser, and the altitude affected our 

 respiration. We were weak from insufficiency of food. Our 

 tired animals could hardly be dragged and beaten along. It 

 was hours after sunset when we arrived. 



" The cold had become intense, and it was so long before 

 we could find a down-tree, that we were almost in despair. 

 At last we spied the tips of some dead branches of a pros- 

 trate pine sticking out of the deep snow some distance below 

 us, but to where it lay the descent was so steep as to be quite 

 dangerous to attempt. A fire was however a necessity to 

 existence, and though the animals instinctively pulled back, 

 we hauled and pushed them to the place. 



" The pine proved to be a big old tree some three feet 

 through at the butt, and was lying head down the incline. 

 Some storm had torn it up by the roots long ago, since it 

 had evidently been dead many years. We chopped off some 

 few of its lower branches, cleared away the snow from its 



