wall shaped like a crude horseshoe. At its
toe water had leaped down and eroded a slight groove in the solid rock.
This was my only chance. It was not inviting, but I had no
alternative. It led me down a hundred feet, then tightened into a sort
of chimney. Just below I could see the swaying top of a big tree.
Firewood must be near at hand! Wider ledges must lay close beneath!

Fifty feet down the chimney, just as it deepened into a comfortable
groove with rough, gripable sides, I came to a sudden halt, for the
rock was broken away; the cleft bottom of the chute overhung the cliff
below. Sweat streamed down my face, in spite of the cold wind.
Visions of a leaping campfire died out of my mind.

The Engelmann spruce swayed toward me encouragingly, as though offering
to help me down. But its top was many feet from the wall. There was
an abandoned bird's nest in it; a little below that was a dead limb
with a woodpecker's incision at its base. By leaning out I could see,
a hundred feet or more below the bottom of the swaying tree.

In my extremity I shouted, even as I had done in the glacier crevasse,
though there was no one to hear. The echo came back sharply. "There
must be another wall angling this one," I thought.

"It's got to be done, there's no other way." I spoke the words out
loud to boost my courage.

The tip of the old spruce rose to almost my level; but there was that
intervening gulf between it and the rock on which I stood. How wide
was that gulf, I wondered. Five feet? Ten? Too far!

A score of times I surveyed the tree-top, tried to estimate the
distance, sought a foothold in the cramped rock chute, and worked into
position for the leap.

No sharpshooter ever aligned his sights more carefully than I did my
feet. My coat was buttoned tightly, cap pulled down. When at last I
was all set, I hesitated, postponed the jump and cowered back against
the wall. A dozen times I made ready, filled my lungs with deep
breaths, stretched each leg out to make sure it was in working order,
but every time my courage failed me.

Suddenly resolute, not giving myself chance to think, I tensed, filled
my lungs, leaned away from the rock, and launched headlong.

As my body crashed into the treetop my fingers clutched like talons, my
arms clasped the limbs as steel bands. I was safe in the arms of that
centuries-old spruce.

Never since that day have I taken such a chance. The thought of it,
even now,