d have liked to take, but it is probable
that, however many more exposures had been made, they would have been
little better than those we got. Our top-of-the-mountain photography was
a great disappointment. One thing we learned: exposures at such altitude
should be longer than those below, perhaps owing to the darkness of the
sky.

[Illustration: Robert Tatum raising the Stars and Stripes on the highest
point in North America.

This photograph was exposed upon a previous exposure.]

[Sidenote: The Stars and Stripes]

When the mercurial barometer had been read the tent was thrown down and
abandoned, the first of the series of abandonments that marked our
descent from the mountain. The tent-pole was used for a moment as a
flagstaff while Tatum hoisted a little United States flag he had
patiently and skilfully constructed in our camps below out of two silk
handkerchiefs and the cover of a sewing-bag. Then the pole was put to
its permanent use. It had already been carved with a suitable
inscription, and now a transverse piece, already prepared and fitted,
was lashed securely to it and it was planted on one of the little snow
turrets of the summit--the sign of our redemption, high above North
America. Only some peaks in the Andes and some peaks in the Himalayas
rise above it in all the world. It was of light, dry birch and, though
six feet in length, so slender that we think it may weather many a gale.
And Walter thrust it into the snow so firmly at a blow that it could not
be withdrawn again. Then we gathered about it and said the Te Deum.

[Illustration: The saying of the Te Deum.

This picture was snapped three times instead of once. Karstens' fingers
were freezing and the bulb-release was broken. Only three figures were
in the group.]

It was 1.30 P. M. when we reached the summit and two minutes past three
when we left; yet so quickly had the time flown that we could not
believe we had been an hour and a half on top. The journey down was a
long, weary grind, the longer and the wearier that we made a detour and
went out of our way to seek for Professor Parker's thermometer, which he
had left "in a crack on the west side of the last boulder of the
northeast ridge." That sounds definite enough, yet in fact it is
equivocal. "Which is the last boulder?" we disputed as we went down the
slope. A long series of rocks almost in line came to an end, with one
rock a little below the others, a little out of the line. This e