THE CHARM OF ILLECILLEWAET. 



105 



they are leaving by first train, and will 

 even pay their bills and pack their lug- 

 eace. l>ut the mountain fever is as bad 

 as the opium habit. Women become 

 hysterical over their tea, weep, even 

 go back to bed. But lunch and supper 

 revive these weaklings ; they come out 

 on the porches and hear the gossip ; and 

 the spell returns as they look at the 

 scenery, often raving about its beauties, 

 and of what they saw from far "up 

 there" at noon yesterday. Sarcasms, 

 rivalries, challenges to tests of endur- 

 ance, development of a hunger that will 

 hardly consent to be satisfied, and a 

 new kind of sleep ! The novelty and 

 unexpectedness, the peeping out of that 

 part of human nature which makes us 

 all civilized savages ; and the next 

 morning a limping, sore, slow-moving 

 little party starts to some other and 

 higher point ; while the guide again 

 smokes solemnly, and after the "ex- 

 plorers 7 ' are out of sight, he lets his 

 inward smile come out and beam over 

 his face. Some of these novices are 

 sure to develop skill and power in 

 climbing. They get the Alpine names 

 at their finger-ends, venture; even find 

 the shy flowers of the upper heights, 

 which bloom nowhere more exquisitely 

 than at the edge of the snow fields, 

 where the ground is damp. 



Finally, a real ascent is planned, and 

 the guides take charge of the party. 

 Shoes shod with short iron spikes, a 

 rope, flasks of water and wine, more 

 sandwiches, even tiny bundles of wood 

 for making a fire and boiling coffee 

 above the timber line. The guides carry 

 two or three extra and warm woolen 

 jackets for use by chilled members of 

 the party. Each one carries an alpen- 

 stock, a stout staff shod with an iron 

 point; Some alpenstocks have a metal 

 head which has the blade of a tiny 

 axe on one side, and a pointed iron 

 pick on the other. These ice-axes are 

 used to chop steps in icy slopes. The 

 pick opposite the axe-blade |Sl sometimes 

 swung over the head and brought down 

 into the ice-slope above the chopped 

 steps, when the handle of the alpenstock 



furnishes a hand-hold, and greater se- 

 curity. 



Nothing could be more full of name- 

 less charm than a passage over one of 

 these ice-slopes. The party is usually 

 five in number — three guides and two 

 guests, all tied together with the long 

 rope, one of the guides at each end, 

 and one in the middle. The advance 

 guide will pause at some ice-incline, 

 perhaps five hundred feet across, and 

 with its lower edge terminating at a 

 crevasse or cliff at the brink of a de- 

 scent, sheer, of several hundred feet. 

 He chops the first step with his ice-axe, 

 and then another ; when, if necessary, 

 he swings the pick side of the axe-head 

 over his shoulder and fastens the pick 

 into the slope above him. Then he or- 

 ders the novice on the rope behind him 

 to place both his feet into that first 

 chopped step. Thus the entire party 

 slowly advances across the slope. The 

 "bright face of danger" is before them ; 

 the spell of the mountains is upon them. 

 No more absolute monarchs in all the 

 world than these guides have become. 

 Standing at the middle, head and rear 

 of the party of five, they hold the lives 

 of the other two in their hands, and risk 

 their own lives also. Let the reader be- 

 come a member of such a party, stand 

 in the quickly formed niches or steps 

 made by the head guide, become fright- 

 ened, lose his head and try to sit down. 

 Then he will know what it is to be 

 admonished and reprimanded until his 

 wrath overcomes his fright, and he is 

 brought back to moods of safety. For 

 those guides have a blistering, unpro- 

 fane vocabulary of awful words for 

 just that juncture, and which is sure 

 to be of vital benefit to faint-hearted 

 novices. 



The pen drops, impotent to tell of the 

 vastness and grandeur of the scenery, 

 of the strange sense of remoteness felt 

 by the members of our own party of 

 three as we slept up on those mountains 

 during another fortnight's fruitless 

 quest for bighorn sheep. It is there. 

 Immense, alone, comforting and su- 

 preme. 



