himself steadied by his hands. He stooped slowly down, knelt upon the
wall, then bestrode it.

"Now, forward," cried Skinner, and he pulled in the rope. "Forward. We
cannot go back!"

Hine clung to the ridge; behind him Pierre Delouvain sat down and held
him about the waist. Slowly they worked themselves forward, while Garratt
Skinner gathered in the rope in front. The wall narrowed as they
advanced, became the merest edge which cut their hands as they clasped
it. Hine closed his eyes, his head whirled, he was giddy, he felt sick.
He stopped gripping the slope on both sides with his knees, clutching the
sharp edge with the palms of his hands.

"I can't go on! I can't," he cried, and he reeled like a novice on the
back of a horse.

Garratt Skinner worked back to him.

"Put your arms about my waist, Wallie! Keep your eyes shut! You
shan't fall."

Walter Hine clung to him convulsively, Pierre Delouvain steadied Hine
from behind, and thus they went slowly forward for a long while. Garratt
Skinner gripped the edge with the palms of his hands--so narrow was the
ridge--the fingers of one hand pointed down one slope, the fingers of the
other down the opposite wall. Their legs dangled.

At last Walter Hine felt Garratt Skinner loosening his clasped fingers
from about his waist. Garratt Skinner stood up, uncoiled the rope,
chipped a step or two in the ice and went boldly forward. For a yard
or two further Walter Hine straddled on, and then Garratt Skinner
cried to him:

"Look up, Wallie. It's all over."

Hine looked and saw Garratt Skinner standing upon a level space of snow
in the side of the mountain. A moment later he himself was lying in the
sun upon the level space. The famous ice-arete was behind them. Walter
Hine looked back along it and shuddered. The thin edge of ice curving
slightly downward, stretched away to the black rock-tower, in the bright
sunlight a thing most beautiful, but most menacing and terrible. He
seemed cut off by it from the world. They had a meal upon that level
space, and while Hine rested, Pierre Delouvain cast off the rope and went
ahead. He came back in a little while with a serious face.

"Will it go?" asked Garratt Skinner.

"It must," said Delouvain. "For we can never go back"; and suddenly
alarmed lest the way should be barred in front as well as behind, Walter
Hine turned and looked above him. His nerves were already shaken; at the
sight of what lay ahead of him, he uttered a cry