(Racing an 



the long tacks I had made, which showed clearly 

 up to the snow-corniced, mist-shrouded crags 

 at the summit. I had come down the side of a 

 precipitous amphitheatre which rose a thousand 

 feet or more above me. A short distance down 

 the mountain, the slopes of this amphitheatre 

 concentrated in a narrow gulch that extended 

 two miles or more. Altogether it was like being 

 in an enormous frying-pan lying face up. I was 

 in the pan just above the place where the gulch 

 handle joined. 



It was a bad place to get out of, and thousands 

 of tons of snow clinging to the steeps and sag- 

 ging from corniced crests ready to slip, plunge 

 down, and sweep the very spot on which I 

 stood, showed most impressively that it was a 

 perilous place to be in. 



As I stood gazing upward and wondering how 

 the snow ever could have held while I came 

 down over it, there suddenly appeared on the 

 upper steeps an upburst as from an explosion. 

 Along several hundred feet of cornice, sprays 

 and clouds of snow dashed and filled the air. 

 An upward breeze curled and swept the top of 



7 



