84 SUMMER 



petrels on the top was out of the question. Yet as 

 I backed over the rim of that peak, and began to 

 pick my way down, it was not disappointment, but 

 fear that I felt. It had been bad enough coming 

 up; but this going down! with the cold, wet 

 shadow of night encircling you and lying dark on 

 the cold, sullen sea below this was altogether 

 worse. 



The rocks were already wet, and the footing was 

 treacherous. As we worked slowly along, the birds 

 in the gathering gloom seemed to fear us less, flying 

 close about our heads, their harsh cries and winging 

 tumult adding not a little to the peril of the descent. 

 And then the looking down ! and then the impossi- 

 bility at places of even looking down when one 

 could only hang on with one's hands and feel around 

 in the empty air with one's feet for something to 

 stand on ! 



I got a third of the way down, perhaps, and then 

 stopped. The men did not laugh at me. They simply 

 looped a rope about me, under my arms, and lowered 

 me over the narrow shelves into the midst of a large 

 murre colony, from which point I got on alone. 

 Then they tied the rope about Dallas, my eleven- 

 year-old son, who was with me on the expedition, 

 and lowered him. 



He came bumping serenely down, smoothing all 

 the little murres and feeling of all the warm eggs on 

 the way, as if they might have been so many little 



