to winter, and forced me off the
heights. It was impossible to thread my way back over the route I had
come; for it twisted in and out, around up-flung crags and cliffs.

My compass showed that the wind was driving eastward, the direction in
which I wanted to go; so I headed down wind, secure in the thought that
I would soon be off the roof of the world. Lightning and heavy thunder
accompanied the snowstorm, the clouds came down and blotted out the
day; twilight descended upon the earth.

A band of mountain sheep started up from their shelter behind an
upthrust rock and ran ahead of me. I followed them, partly because
they ran in the direction I was going, and partly because they are apt
to select the safest way down the cliffs.

But they turned aside the moment they were out of the wind, swung up on
a protected ledge and there halted to wait out the storm. My compass
had gone crazy. A dozen times I tried it out. It would point a
different direction whenever I moved a few steps. However, the compass
mattered little; the chief thing that concerned me was getting down off
the roof of the world.

Snow swirled down the cliffs, plastering rocks and ledges until both
footholds and handholds were hidden. Still I had to go down, there was
nothing else to do. The hardy sheep, with their heavy coats, could
wait out the storm. But night, with numbing cold, and treacherous
darkness in which I'd dare not move, would soon o'ertake and vanquish
me.

For an hour the ledges provided footing. By turning about, twisting
and doubling, there was always a way down. Of a sudden the clouds
parted; a long bar of sunshine touched the green forest far below me,
focused for a moment upon a single treetop, then vanished as though the
shutter of a celestial camera has snapped shut.

At last I came to a ledge beneath which the sheer cliff dropped away
into unfathomable snowy depths. After short excursions to right and
left I discovered that a section of the cliff had split off and dropped
into the canyon, leaving only sheer rock walls that offered nothing in
the way of footholds. Irresolutely, I faced back the way I had come.
Overhead the wind roared deafeningly; the snow came piling down. No
hope of retracing my steps. I was tired; that upward climb would be
slow and tortuous, would require great strength and endurance. I faced
about and began a thorough, desperate search for a downward route. I
stood marooned in the canyon