BUTTERFLIES OF MT. HOOD 155 



Working round the crevasse, we kept on till 

 we reached the new rope dropped down to us 

 eighteen hundred feet from the peak. Here we 

 stuck our pikes into the snow, breathed ourselves 

 for a minute, and laid hold on the rope. As we 

 did so, a piece of rock, about the size of a large 

 waterpail, was dislodged from the summit and 

 started down the sheer slope straight at us. It was 

 dropping down the steps cut by the last climbers 

 to reach the peak, a path as straight to us as the 

 rope could fall. Gripping the rope we swung to 

 one side, watching the wild thing as it came 

 plunging, bounding at us with incredible speed, 

 ready to dodge should it fly at our heads. It was 

 a fearful quarter-minute. Down it came, straight 

 at its mark, leaping faster, farther, higher with 

 every spring from the snow. Down straight at us 

 it tore, struck just in front of us, ripped past with 

 a wicked whiz, hit a hundred feet below us, 

 sprang madly into the air, and, like a bolt, was 

 gone. 



Then the real work of the climb began, and to 

 it was added this new alarm of rolling rocks. I 

 had grown by this time quite familiar with the 

 fear of falling, and had ceased to mind it; but I 



