ncredulity about the
"Pioneer" ascent, perhaps too readily, certainly too confidently; but
the men themselves must bear the chief blame for that. The writer and
his party, knowing these men much better, had never doubt that _some_ of
them had accomplished what was claimed, and these details have been gone
into for no other reason than that honor may at last be given where
honor is due.

[Sidenote: Pete Anderson and Billy Taylor]

To Lloyd belongs the honor of conceiving and organizing the attempt but
not of accomplishing it. To him probably also belongs the original
discovery of the route that made the ascent possible. To McGonogill
belongs the credit of discovering the pass, probably the only pass, by
which the glacier may be reached without following it from its snout up,
a long and difficult journey; and to him also the credit of climbing
some nineteen thousand five hundred feet, or to within five hundred feet
of the North Peak. But to Pete Anderson and Billy Taylor, two of the
strongest men, physically, in all the North, and to none other, belongs
the honor of the first ascent of the North Peak and the planting of what
must assuredly be the highest flagstaff in the world. The North Peak has
never since been climbed or attempted.

* * * * *

In the summer of the same year, 1910, Professor Parker and Mr. Belmore
Browne, members of the second Cook party, convinced by this time that
Cook's claim was wholly unfounded, attempted the mountain again, and
another party, organized by Mr. C. E. Rust, of Portland, Oregon, also
endeavored the ascent. But both these expeditions confined themselves to
the hopeless southern side of the range, from which, in all probability,
the mountain never can be climbed.

THE PARKER-BROWNE EXPEDITION

To a man living in the interior of Alaska, aware of the outfitting and
transportation facilities which the large commerce of Fairbanks affords,
aware of the navigable waterways that penetrate close to the foot-hills
of the Alaskan range, aware also of the amenities of the interior slope
with its dry, mild climate, its abundance of game and rich pasturage
compared with the trackless, lifeless snows of the coast slopes, there
seems a strange fatuity in the persistent efforts to approach the
mountain from the southern side of the range.

It is morally certain that if the only expedition that remains to be
dealt with--that organized by Professor Parker and Mr.