Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/132

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It came about in this way:

On the 31st of May, 1904, journeying from Calgary to Glacier, in the hope of spending an idle day or two under the hospitable roof of Glacier House, and while the train was making its usual twenty-minute stop at Field, I had the good fortune to see in an eddy of the crowd which was swirling restlessly along the station platform, the bronzed, cheery faces of those sturdy Swiss mountaineers and guides, the Kaufmanns—Christian and Hans.

My resolution to spend but two days in the mountains and to do no climbing so early in the season, was not proof against the call of the Rockies that came with the warm hand clasps of those friends of the previous summer, and "Is the snow in good condition?" seemed under the circumstances, the only possible greeting.

That the snow was not "good" did not matter, when Hans, following my inquiring gaze to the top of the mountain in the shadow of which Field is so comfortably tucked away, said that we might try Mt. Stephen. Five minutes later my bags, recovered from various parts of the train, were being carried to a room in the Mt. Stephen House.

In the evening of the following day, content in the successful ascent of Stephen, our conversation naturally turned to the mountains, and to a discussion of the virgin peaks within easy reach of the railroad. Mt. Ball and the north tower of Mt. Goodsir were, in the estimation of the guides, best worth attempting, and of these two, Christian, doubtless influenced, good sportsman that he was, by the memory of his defeat