188 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



which would have hurried me over the precipice. A 

 lucky piece of rock had stopped my progress. 



I crawled on my hands and knees carefully, after 

 making fast with the head of my ice-axe. I occasionally 

 slipped, and had to let myself lie flat to stop myself 

 from commencing to slide again. 



It was during this time that I tried to make a 

 fresh grip with my ice-axe that I began to slip. I 

 now remembered my knife, so I got it out and opened 

 the short tin-opener blade. This was a great help, 

 and with its aid and that of the axe I managed to 

 regain the ridge. It seemed to take a second to slide 

 down and about two hours to crawl back ; the distance 

 was about sixty feet. I scraped lots of snow out of 

 my neck, but a good deal of it melted there and gave 

 me a cold bath. After my pockets were cleared and 

 clothes shaken out I felt very cold and wet. To keep 

 up the circulation, more than with any idea of attempt- 

 ing to climb the ridge again that day, I decided to 

 cut as many steps as possible and come back the 

 following day. The wind began to blow from the 

 north intensely cold, and this made me abandon 

 the step-cutting and hurry off the ridge as fast as I 

 could go. My clothes stiffened upon me, and at one 

 time I felt that I was going to lose the use of my 

 hands. I rubbed them with snow and began the 

 descent ; but the wind had glazed the rock with ice, 

 and I was a very long time climbing down ; even 

 so I had to exercise the greatest caution. 



The climax came when I found myself above a gully 

 which required to be climbed down and appeared to 

 project. I had not climbed up it, so concluded I had 

 missed the route by which I made the ascent. 



