d reason to
be grateful; and surely we were happy in having Him to whom our
gratitude might be poured out. What a bald, incomplete, and
disconcerting thing it must be to have no one to thank for crowning
mercies like these!

On Tuesday, the 10th June, we made our final abandonment, leaving the
tent standing with stove and food and many articles that we did not need
cached in it, and with four of the dogs carrying packs and led with
chains, packs on our own backs and the ice-axes for staves in our hands,
we turned our backs upon the mountain and went down the valley toward
the Clearwater. The going was not too bad until we had crossed that
stream and climbed the hills to the rolling country between it and the
McKinley Fork of the Kantishna. Again and again we looked back for a
parting glimpse of the mountain, but we never saw sign of it any more.
The foot-hills were clear, the rugged wall of the glacier cut the sky,
but the great mountain might have been a thousand miles off for any
visible indication it gave. It is easy to understand how travellers
across equatorial Africa have passed near the base of the snowy peaks of
Ruwenzori without knowing they were even in the neighborhood of great
mountains, and have come back and denied their existence.

[Sidenote: Across Country]

The broken country between the streams was difficult. Underneath was a
thick elastic moss in which the foot sank three or four inches at every
step and that makes toilsome travelling. The mosquitoes were a constant
annoyance. But the abundant bird life upon this open moorland,
continually reminding one as it did of moorlands in the north of England
or of Scotland, was full of interest. Ptarmigan, half changed from their
snowy plumage to the brown of summer, and presenting a curious piebald
appearance, were there in great numbers, cackling their guttural cry
with its concluding notes closely resembling the "ko-ax, ko-ax" of the
Frogs' Chorus in the comedy of Aristophanes; snipe whistled and curlews
whirled all about us. Half-way across to the McKinley Fork it began to
rain, thunder-peal succeeding thunder-peal, and each crash announcing a
heavier downpour. Soon we were all wet through, and then the rain turned
to hail that fell smartly until all the moss was white with it, and that
gave place to torrents of rain again. Dog packs and men's packs were
alike wet, and no one of us had a dry stitch on him when we reached the
banks of the McKinley Fork a