THE ROCKER . 
O’Rorke nodded. He drew out a pair of 
binoculars and examined the rocks atten- 
tively. 
“ And the Rocker ? ” he inquired at last. 
“ The mass between the Thumb and the 
Needle/’ said the guide. “ The Herr has 
seen enough ? 5 5 
“ The Herr has seen what he expected to 
see,” said O’Rorke, placidly. u What about 
getting along ? ” 
Lahn shrugged his shoulders. 
“ The Herr thinks it worth while continuing 
to the pinnacle foot ? ” 
“ No/’ said O’Rorke ; “ but to its summit 
■ — yes 1 ” # 
The guide stared at him with a sort of 
dogged curiosity. Imperturbably the other 
stared back. Then Lahn humped his shoul- 
ders, emitted his customary grunt of acquies- 
cence, and stepped forward. It was the 
Gemsenhorn face, which had to be traversed 
now — a feat demanding both skill and nerve. 
It is one, indeed, which would be impossible 
but for a certain geological fact. The moun- 
tain is not a homogeneous mass — certain 
stratum cleavages have taken place in its 
composition, and queer, rugged, shelf-like 
edges protrude from the parent rock. It is 
a cool and practised climber who finds his way 
without a slip from each to each. The guide 
sighed with relief as the party crowded together 
at last upon the broken, wind-worn summit 
of the Thumb. 
“ It is no child’s play — this traverse ! ” he 
confessed. “To return as swiftly and as 
securely as we have come is a to-be-well- 
spoken-of feat.” 
O’Rorke smiled. 
“ To return you have to arrive,” he re- 
minded him. “ Our goal is that ! ” He 
pointed to the Needle’s arrogant tip. 
Lahn rummaged in his breast-pocket, pro- 
duced the butt of a half-smoked cigar, lit it, 
and began to send great puffs of smoke into 
the air. He stared stolidly into the Ameri- 
can’s face. 
“ The Herr desires to do — what ? ” he 
asked. “ Beyond this point no one has 
attained. That ” — he pointed again to the 
mass which filled the gap between his feet 
and the smoothed sides of the Needle — “ that, 
as I have told you, is the Rocker.” 
“ So I guess,” agreed O’Rorke. “ Are we 
going to make it rock ? ” 
“ No ! ” said Lahn, decisively. “ If we 
did the ice and snow beneath it would 
probably shiver off and— probably — sweep 
us away. But others have done so. The 
first man to set foot on it was the famous 
2^9 
English Professor Langdale. Because he 
was a cautious man and well roped, his party 
dragged him back the moment the tilting 
movement began. The second was the 
Frenchman, M. de Lau, the great traveller. 
He was unroped and obstinate. His travels 
ended — there ! ” He pointed directly 
downwards into the chaos of glacier-carved 
moraine three thousand feet below. 
The American nodded. 
“ I’ve heard the tale — and a dozen others 
like it. No one has reached the Needle 
because no one can traverse over or under 
the Rocker to its foot. But then, as far as I 
can gather, no one has ever tried who can 
fling a lariat ! ” 
Lahn knitted his brows. 
“ A la-ree-et ? ” he pondered. “ I do not 
understand.” 
O’Rorke unwound the rawhide. 
“ This ! ” he said. “ Look at it — and then 
look at that ! ” He pointed to an out- 
thrust horn of stone upon the flank of the 
Needle — one of the queer, twisted out- 
croppings which seamed the whole face of 
the cliff. It was silhouetted against the sky 
some fifty feet from where the climbers 
stood. 
The American loosed the knot from about 
his waist. 
“ I ain’t going to move -yet,” he explained, 
“but I want pretty well the whole of my 
body free.” Then he turned to Cart hew. 
“ The Bishop, when he told me the story of 
the Needle and the Rocker, showed me his 
photographs of it,” he continued. “ When 
I saw that, tusk I could not help noticing how 
like an unbusted steer’s horn it stood. It 
just seemed ashing to be roped. Now it’s 
not going to ask in vain.” 
He gripped the coils of the rawhide and 
swung the loose, looped end around his head. 
With a whistling sound it leaped out across 
the gap, rapped the surface of the Needle, 
and for one precarious moment hung upon 
the horn of rock. Then its own weight 
dragged it back. 
“ First shot a miss ! ” commented O’Rorke, 
philosophically. “ The next’s going to be 
in the bull, or I’ll know the reason why ! ” 
But Carthew cried out with a suddenly 
vehement note of anger in his voice. To him 
the American’s purpose needed no elaboration. 
He saw, quickly enough, that the lasso, once 
firmly fixed upon the Needle’s flank, would 
provide a bridge by which an expert could 
swing himself across the gap without so much 
as setting foot upon the unstablestone beneath. 
He saw the pinnacle vanquished and O’Rorke 
