THE ARCTIC AND THE ANTARCTIC 63 



not reach it.' Such was the tale of the poor victim 

 of the pass ; he died before morning, despite our 

 struggles to save him, and we felt that we could not 

 survive him long. 



No light appeared at ten o'clock, nor was there any 

 promise of the blinding storm abating. Our fire had 

 gone out, and we sat in darkness beside the lifeless 

 body we had saved from the snows. 



' We'll make another try, boys,' I said. ' We may 

 as well go under trying, if it has to be.' 



Our load was small enough now ; the pity was we 

 had not lightened it sooner. I strapped the small 

 mail- bag to my shoulders, my comrades carried all 

 further impedimenta, and, leaving the dead man in his 

 icy vault, we staggered into the darkness and forced 

 an erratic track towards Chilcoot Pass. Crater Lake 

 was reached in two hours ; I could only guess we had 

 arrived at it by the evenness of the surface ; the air 

 was so dense that objects could not be distinguished 

 even a few feet distant. I tried to fix a bearing by 

 compass, but the attempt was futile, the needle swaying 

 to all points in turn, owing to the magnetic influences 

 around. Then we felt for the mountain-side on the 

 left, and staggered over the blast -blown rocks and 

 glaciers along its precipitous steeps. 



As we neared the summit the howl of the blizzard 

 increased to a shrill, piercing whistle, but we now were 

 sheltered by the pass, and the fierce blast passed over- 

 head. All this time we forced onward through a murky 

 gloom, with our bodies joined with ropes that we might 

 not lose one another. At three in the afternoon I 

 calculated that we were near the crucial point at which 

 the final ascent can be negotiated, and we left the white 



