ing
to black in that unseen chasm. On either hand the rift of the crevasse
extended, and above was the small hole in the snow bridge through which
I had shot.

Soon I heard McLean calling, "Are you all right?" And I answered in
what he and Correll thought an alarmingly distant voice. They started
enlarging the hole to pull me out, until lumps of snow began to fall
and I had to yell for mercy. Then I felt they were hauling, and slowly I
rose to daylight.

The crevasse ran westward along the gully, forcing us to make a detour
through a maze of smaller cracks. We had to retreat up the hill in one
place, throwing off half the load and carrying it on in relays. There
was a blistering sun and the work was hard. At last the sledge came to
a clear run and tobogganed into the snow-filled valley, turning eastward
towards its outlet.

At the evening camp the sledge-meter indicated that our distance
eastward of the Hut was sixty miles, one thousand two hundred yards. The
northern face of the gully was very broken and great sentinel pillars
of ice stood out among the yawning caves, some of them leaning like
the tower of Pisa, others having fallen and rolled in shattered
blocks. Filling the vision to the south-west was Aurora Peak, in crisp
silhouette against a glorious radiant of cirrus cloud.

Reviewing the day through our peaceful smoke-rings, I was rather
comforted by the fact that the fall into the crevasse had thoroughly
tested my harness. Correll expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with
his test. McLean seemed to feel somewhat out of it, being the only one
without a crevasse experience; which happy state he maintained until the
end, apparently somewhat to his disappointment.

On the 24th we broke camp at 9 A.M., continuing down the gully towards
the glacier. A lofty wall of rocks, set within a frame of ice, was
observed on our left, one mile away. To it we diverged and found it to
be gneiss similar to that of Aurora Peak. Several photos were taken.

The land was at our back and the margin of the glacier had been crossed.
Only too soon we were in the midst of terribly crevassed ground, through
which one could only thread a slow and zig-zag course. The blue ice was
riven in every direction by gaping quarries and rose smooth and slippery
on the ridges which broke the surface into long waves. Shod with
crampons, the rear of the sledge secured by a tail-rope, we had a
trying afternoon guiding the load along the narrow r