ut to get a tottery, nerve-shaken, pain-wracked cripple
down was a feat of positive wonder. My right arm, though in place, was
almost helpless. I could only move my forearm; the muscles of the upper
part simply refusing to obey my will. Muir would let himself down to a
lower shelf, brace himself, and I would get my right hand against him,
crawl my fingers over his shoulder until the arm hung in front of him,
and falling against him, would be eased down to his standing ground.
Sometimes he would pack me a short distance on his back. Again, taking
me by the wrist, he would swing me down to a lower shelf, before
descending himself. My right shoulder came out three times that night,
and had to be reset.

It was dark when we reached the base; there was no moon and it was very
cold. The glacier provided an operating table, and I lay on the ice for
an hour while Muir, having slit the sleeve of my shirt to the collar,
tugged and twisted at my left arm in a vain attempt to set it. But the
ball was too deep in its false socket, and all his pulling only bruised
and made it swell. So he had to do up the arm again, and tie it tight to
my body. It must have been near midnight when we left the foot of the
cliff and started down the mountain. We had ten hard miles to go, and no
supper, for the hardtack had disappeared ere we were half-way up the
mountain. Muir dared not take me across the glacier in the dark; I was
too weak to jump the crevasses. So we skirted it and came, after a mile,
to the head of a great slide of gravel, the fine moraine matter of the
receding glacier. Muir sat down on the gravel; I sat against him with my
feet on either side and my arm over his shoulder. Then he began to hitch
and kick, and presently we were sliding at great speed in a cloud of
dust. A full half-mile we flew, and were almost buried when we reached
the bottom of the slide. It was the easiest part of our trip.

Now we found ourselves in the canyon, down which tumbled the glacial
stream, and far beneath the ridge along which we had ascended. The
sides of the canyon were sheer cliffs.

"We'll try it," said Muir. "Sometimes these canyons are passable."

But the way grew rougher as we descended. The rapids became falls and we
often had to retrace our steps to find a way around them. After we
reached the timber-line, some four miles from the summit, the going was
still harder, for we had a thicket of alders and willows to fight. Here
Muir offered to