e had an inclination of thirty degrees. We should have
had to cut steps with our ice axes all the way up had it not been for
our snow-creepers, which worked splendidly. As it was, not more than
a dozen or fifteen steps actually had to be cut even in the steepest
part. Tucker was first on the rope, I was second, Coello third, and
Gamarra brought up the rear. We were not a very gay party. The high
altitude was sapping all our ambition. I found that an occasional lump
of sugar acted as the best rapid restorative to sagging spirits. It was
astonishing how quickly the carbon in the sugar was absorbed by the
system and came to the relief of smoldering bodily fires. A single
cube gave new strength and vigor for several minutes. Of course,
one could not eat sugar without limit, but it did help to tide over
difficult places.

We zigzagged slowly up, hour after hour, alternately resting and
climbing, until we were about to reach what seemed to be the top,
obviously, alas, not as high as our enemy to the north. Just then
Tucker gave a great shout. The rest of us were too much out of breath
to ask him why he was wasting his strength shouting. When at last we
painfully came to the edge of what looked like the summit we saw the
cause of his joy. There, immediately ahead of us, lay another slope
three hundred feet higher than where we were standing. It may seem
strange that in our weakened condition we should have been glad to
find that we had three hundred feet more to climb. Remember, however,
that all the morning we had been gazing with dread at that aggravating
north peak. Whenever we had had a moment to give to the consideration
of anything but the immediate difficulties of our climb our hearts
had sunk within us at the thought that possibly, after all, we might
find the north peak higher. The fact that there lay before us another
three hundred feet, which would undoubtedly take us above the highest
point of that aggravating north peak, was so very much the less of
two possible evils that we understood Tucker's shout. Yet none of us
was lusty enough to echo it.

With faint smiles and renewed courage we pegged along, resting on
our ice axes, as usual, every twenty-five steps until at last, at
half-past eleven, after six hours and a half of climbing from the
20,000-foot camp, we reached the culminating point of Coropuna. As
we approached it, Tucker, although naturally much elated at having
successfully engineered the first ascent