Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1895-02-22
An AlDinc Dcsccnt
Vividly Described by Chos. stewart Ia,
vison i'm the Atlantic Monthly.

Vividly Described by Chas. stewart la
vision i'm the Atlantic Monthly.
1t is one things to come up an ice slope
step 10y step, cutting foot and hand holds,
resting your body forward against the
mountain, and quite different matter to
creep down, facing half outwards, each
heel catching perhaps an inch to an inch
and half of hold in a nick in the ice,
leaning backwards with one hand against
the ice, and getting a more or less untrust-
worthy brace for your body from your
alpenstock set below YOU and little to
one side. On very steep slopes even this
is impossible, and you must turn round
and back down as you came up, feeling
below with the toe of your boot each foot
alternately, for each new foot-hold. The
descent to the great crevasse was not quite
steep enough to make this latter mode nee
essary, except for the last few feet so we
crept down, half sideways, Pinggera first,
| following, with the rope stretched nearly
taut between us. We had gone perhaps
half the distance from where the sleeper
portion of the slope began to the crevasse,
| when, taking mOmentary counsel with my
| fears, | said TO Pinggera, "lf we slip here,
what them" | suppose it was more the
tone of my voice than what | said that
affected him. He evidently thought that
now for the first time, and belyng twenty
experiences during the past few weeks, of
almost every conceivable combination of
difficulties on ice and rock, / was about to
lose my head; or, to put it in plain Eng
! fish, my courage" He turned back on
me face of ashy whiteness and, announc-
| ing what he thought the fact rather than
answering my question, said simply, in
! tones of quiet, despairing conviction, "Wir
sind verloren.n AS often happens, a rec
! ognition of the effect on another person of
a momentary loss of confidence removed
| the actuating doubt. Whatever of pride ]
| had came to my immediate assistance. But
more than that, instant appreciation arose
that, should any lack of confidence on my
part infect Pinggera so that he also lost
confidence, we were indeed, as he succinctly
put it, "verloren." Therefore | laughed,
and said, "Well, 60 on; you can slip if you
like; | shall not" and we methodically
resumed Our descent. Nevertheless. that
exercise CT care usually expressed by the
conventional phrase walking on eggs
bore but slight comparison or relation to
the excess of caution which | used for the
next few minutes.
In perhaps five minutes more we reached
the upper lip of the crevasse; and now our
| ltsltNllNt NulltS III dottllulll4 NtIt DIdCll-
caly reversed | lay stretched out above,
with my feet in the last pair of ot-holds,
and paid the rope out slowly as Pnggera
slid and crawled down to the actual edge.
He let his body slide as far over the edge
rs was compatible with still retaining con
troll of his movements and hold in the
lowest pair of hand-holds, and felt in the
air with his feet to see if he could reach
the lower lip. Naturally he could not, for
his body, hanging straight down, brought
his feet within the outer edge of the ere
vase, some inches above and perhaps a
foot inside the lower lip. Looking over
his shoulder, he marked the exact spot he
must reach with his feet, and Judged the
amount of outward swing he must give to
his body when he let 90 his hold upon the
ice above. This determined. he called up
to me, and | paid him out about four feet
of loose rope, as much as | could afford if
he were to miss his footing on the lower
lip; for if he fell either inside or outside
the crevasse he could do nothing to check
the momentum of his body, and wanted
no such tug at my waist as that of body
dropping, say, fifteen feet or so without a
check.
Pinegera called to me that he was going
TO make his jump, steadied himself, glanced
again over his shoulder, swung his feet, at
the same time pushing his body out from
the ice, and dropped. For just half a sec
ond he swayed and balanced himself on the
top of the pinnacle, and then stood firm.
There was a sense of definite relief in see
ing that thus much, at least, was success
fully accomplished. Again paid him ont
rope, and he craWled down to where had
formerly perched below the lower lip, going
a little to one side, that if | should slip in
my descent | might not strike him, and
send us both rolling down the mountain
There, bracing himself as firmly as he
could, with feet below and back against the
mountain, he called TO me that he was
ready, and to come on. If now fell, there
were two possibilities one of my going in
side the crevasse, in which case the rope
would lead from Pinggcra on the outside
over the edge to myself inside, and | could
be hauled ont. On the other hand, if |
overshot the lip, should half roll. half
tumble, past him; and if he did not succeed
in grabbing me as | went by, he could at
least shorten up on the rope and check my
momentum so that he could stop my fall.
Following his procedure, | turned round,
lowered myself along the ice to the lowest
set of hand-holds, hung there for a mo-
ment, looked down over my shoulder,
swung my feet steadily back, and dropped
on the top of the ice pinnacle My calcu-
lation had been accurate, and found my
self standing there in half-crouching po-
| SitiOn but firmly and solidly