th outward, its own weight would overbalance their united
strength, and it would be likely to escape from their hands and drop to
the bottom of the cleft--whence, of course, they could not recover it.
This would be a sad result, after the trouble they had had in
constructing that well-balanced piece of timber.

Ah! they were not such simpletons as to have worked a whole month
without first having settled all these matters. Karl was too good an
engineer to have gone on thus far, without a proper design of how his
bridge was to be thrown across. If you look at the objects lying
around, you will perceive the evidence of that design. You will
understand how the difficulty is to be got over.

You will see there a ladder nearly fifty feet in length--several days
were expended in the making of this; you will see a strong pulley, with
block-wheels and shears--this cost no little time in the construction;
and you will see several coils of stout rawhide rope. No wonder a month
was expended in the preparation of the bridge!

And now to throw it across the chasm! For that purpose they were upon
the ground, and all their apparatus with them. Without farther delay
the work commenced.

The ladder was placed against the cliff, with its lower end resting upon
the glacier, and as close to the edge of the crevasse as was reckoned
safe.

We have said that the ladder was fifty feet in length; and consequently
it reached to a point on the face of the cliff nearly fifty feet above
the surface of the glacier. At this height there chanced to be a slight
flaw in the rock--a sort of seam in the granite--where a hole could
easily be pierced with an iron instrument.

To make this hole a foot or more in depth was the work of an hour. It
was done by means of the hatchet, and the iron point of Ossaroo's
boar-spear.

A strong wooden stake was next inserted into this hole, fitting it as
nearly as possible; but, in order to make it perfectly tight and firm,
hard wooden wedges were hammered in all around it.

When driven home, the end of this stake protruded a foot or more from
the wall of the cliff; and, by means of notches cut in the wood, and
rawhide thongs, the pulley was securely rigged on to it.

The pulley had been made with two wheels; each of them with axles strong
enough to bear the weight of several hundreds. Both had been well
tested before this time.

Another stake was now inserted into the cliff, within a few feet of the