The entire situation was precarious in the extreme. A slanting snowbank, 

 the only one which maintains itself on the cliff proper, occupies most of the great 

 shoulder, or niche, having a slanting floor. The exposed lower portion of this 

 niche floor is covered with the loosest of slide-rock, and a slip means 125 feet 

 sheer — but not so sheer but that one would strike the foot of the cliff rather than 

 the snow, at the bottom. Fortunately, the edge of the cliff is flanked at this 

 point by a ledge at right angles, and this, although it afforded no reliable hand- 

 holds, gave a necessary basis for reconnoissance. 



The nest lies close up against the main wall upon the floor of a double 

 crevice, formed by the springing away of a remarkable triangular pillar of granite. 

 It is as though this tall pillar had warped rather than fallen away from the wall. 

 The space between the pillar and wall is doubtfully sufficient to admit the human 

 body, flatwise, while the curvature of the inner faces of the pillar leaves the nest 

 four feet back from the verge of the upper wall. The tip of the pinnacle is about 

 fifteen feet below the edge of the cliff, and the nest twelve feet further. 



Lashing a double line to the pikes, set perpendicularly, and partly braced 

 by a loose boulder, I cast off, and achieved, first the tip of the pillar, and then a 

 full-length squeeze in the crevice. That was sufficient! I realized that further 

 progress was madness, for even if I should attain the bottom of the fissure with 

 my feet, I should find myself in a straight-jacket, and could not lower my hand 

 toward the nest by six inches. As it was, I had great difficulty in scrambling out, 

 even by means of the ropes, for the friction of the investing walls added materially 

 to the exertion of lifting the sheer weight of the body. No; either that nest 

 goes uncollected, or I shall have to return with some sort of grappling device. 



I cannot refrain from again mentioning the heroism of my better half, 

 who, in spite of a touch of mountain sickness and loss of meals the previous day, 

 was willing to carry out this unexpected provision of the "for better or for worse" 

 contract. With no foothold in particular, she "manned" the pikes somewhere 

 between the snow and sky, and wished, no doubt devoutly, that her man had 

 been made less enthusiastic. 



For myself, the defeat only whetted my appetite. After elaborate prepara- 

 tions at the lower camp (at the 8000 foot level), I returned, July 11th, with my 

 son Giles, prepared to do business. We had constructed a "glommer" of wood 

 and steel, a sort of long-handled pitchfork, which was guaranteed to lift any 

 nest within a range of thirteen feet. We filed up laboriously with pikes, ropes, 

 glommer and camera — to be confronted by — chicks! There are times when even 

 infants appear unlovely. But, of course, Laurie's "Prospect" was not a building 

 prospect at all. The lad had simply seen the female return once or twice from 

 food trips. 



Set 114/4-22, taken July 11th: — Bobby Canterbury also made a "building 

 location" on the immortal 30th of June; but the lad was over-bashful, and all 

 he could tell us was that the bird had disappeared "somewhere" in a particularly 

 rotten chimney at a point about fifteen feet above the snow. 



Rather doubtfully, then, I returned on the 11th of July, and incited Giles 

 to undertake the climb, while I stood out on the snow and watched developments. 

 The lower part of this chimney, or fissure, was steep and oozy, while the upper 

 two-thirds was choked with fallen boulders, exceedingly unstable in appearance, 

 and a good deal "worse than perpendicular" in arrangement. A climb up this 

 testy flue was not an alluring prospect, and I looked on with foreboding. But, 

 fortunately, after the young man had negotiated the lowest member of the 

 boulder pile, a bird burst out into his face, — very nearly sending him over back- 

 ward in astonishment. By dint of groping in all possible crevices he soon located 

 the nest, though not a vestige of it could be seen from the outside. I substituted 

 promptly at this point, and while overhanging rocks leered and winked groggily, 

 succeeded in digging out the nest, intact, with its treasure of four. The mother 

 bird was only mildly interested in operations, and much preferred to spend the 

 little vacation time sporting with her mate. 



Set 115/5-22. Taken July 11th. On June 50th, the day we sketched 

 in four of our Leuco prospects, I was retiring to camp about 10:30 a. m. along 



n 



