on 



enough to retreat, I threw off my snowshoes and 

 started up. I cut a place in the ice for every step. 

 There was nothing to hold to, and a slip meant 

 a fatal slide. 



With rushes from every quarter, the wind did 

 its best to freeze or overturn me. My ears froze, 

 and my fingers grew so cold that they could 

 hardly hold the ice-axe. But after an hour of con- 

 stant peril and ever-increasing exhaustion, I got 

 above the last ice and stood upon the snow. The 

 snow was solidly packed, and, leaving my snow- 

 shoes strapped across my shoulders, I went scram- 

 bling up. Near the top of the range a ledge 

 of granite cropped out through the snow, and 

 toward this I hurried. Before making a final 

 spurt to the ledge, I paused to breathe. As I 

 stopped, I was startled by sounds like the creak- 

 ing of wheels on a cold, snowy street. The snow 

 beneath me was slipping ! I had started a snow- 

 slide. 



Almost instantly the slide started down the 

 slope with me on it. The direction in which it 

 was going and the speed it was making would in 

 a few seconds carry it down two thousand feet of 



24 



