eded for an avalanche to bear it all below. And just before crossing
that snow slope was a wall of overhanging ice beneath which steps must
be cut for one hundred yards, every yard of which endangered the climber
by disputing the passage of the pack upon his shoulders.

[Illustration: A dangerous passage.]

[Sidenote: The Primus Stove]

Late in the evening of the 27th May, looking up the ridge upon our
return from relaying a load to the cache, we saw Karstens and Walter
standing, clear-cut, against the sky, upon the surface of the unbroken
snow _above_ the earthquake cleavage. Tatum and I gave a great shout of
joy, and, far above as they were, they heard us and waved their
response. We watched them advance upon the steep slope of the ridge
until the usual cloud descended and blotted them out. The way was clear
to the top of the ridge now, and that night our spirits were high, and
congratulations were showered upon the victorious pioneers. The next
day, when they would have gone on to the pass, the weather drove them
back. On that smooth, steep, exposed slope a wind too high for safety
beat upon them, accompanied by driving snow. That day a little accident
happened that threatened our whole enterprise--on such small threads do
great undertakings hang. The primus stove is an admirable device for
heating and cooking--superior, one thinks, to all the newfangled
"alcohol utilities"--but it has a weak point. The fine stream of
kerosene--which, under pressure from the air-pump, is impinged against
the perforated copper cup, heated to redness by burning alcohol, and is
thus vaporized--first passes through several convolutions of pipe within
the burner, and then issues from a hole so fine that some people would
not call it a hole at all but an orifice or something like that. That
little hole is the weak spot of the primus stove. Sometimes it gets
clogged, and then a fine wire mounted upon some sort of handle must be
used to dislodge the obstruction. Now, the worst thing that can happen
to a primus stove is to get the wire pricker broken off in the burner
hole, and that is what happened to us. Without a special tool that we
did not possess, it is impossible to get at that burner to unscrew it,
and without unscrewing it the broken wire cannot be removed. Tatum and I
turned the stove upside down and beat upon it and tapped it, but nothing
would dislodge that wire. It looked remarkably like no supper; it looked
alarmingly like no