w its fragments strewn all over the flat two thousand feet below.
What a sight it must have been last July, when the whole ridge was
heaving, shattering, and showering down its bergs upon the glacier
floors! One day we were driven off the ridge by a high wind that
threatened to sweep us from our footholds. On another, a fine morning
gave place to a sudden dense snow-storm that sent us quickly below
again. Always all day long, while we were on that ridge, the distant
thunder of avalanches resounded from the great basin far above us, into
which the two summits of Denali were continually discharging their
snows. It sounded as though the King of Denmark were drinking healths
all day long to the salvoes of his artillery--that custom "more honored
in the breach than in the observance." From such fancy the mind passed
easily enough to the memory of that astonishing composition of Grieg's,
"In the Hall of the Mountain King," and, once recalled, the stately yet
staccato rhythm ran in one's ears continually. For if we had many days
of cloud and smother of vapor that blotted out everything, when a fine
day came how brilliant beyond all that lower levels know it was! From
our perch on that ridge the lofty peaks and massive ridges rose on every
side. As little by little we gained higher and higher eminence the view
broadened, and ever new peaks and ridges thrust themselves into view. We
were within the hall of the mountain kings indeed; kings nameless here,
in this multitude of lofty summits, but that elsewhere in the world
would have each one his name and story.

And how eager and impatient we were to rise high enough, to progress far
enough on that ridge that we might gaze into the great basin itself from
which the thunderings came, the spacious hall of the two lords paramount
of all the mountains of the continent--the north and south peaks of
Denali! Our hearts beat high with the anticipation not only of gazing
upon it but of entering it and pitching our tent in the midst of its
august solitudes. To come down again--for there was as yet no spot
reached on that splintered backbone where we might make a camp--to pass
day after day in our tent on the glacier floor waiting for the bad
weather to be done that we might essay it again; to watch the
tantalizing and, as it seemed, meaningless fluctuations of the barometer
for encouragement; to listen to the driving wind and the swirling snow,
how tedious that was!

[Sidenote: Camp on the