Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/137

Rh pretended not to see their glances, and drank down some hot tea and ate a little with thankfulness. After half an hour's rest we went on again; we had passed the worst and had no further adventures, and at last arrived at the snow couloir. Once down it, Alex let out a whoop; I followed his example, and the three of us raced down the soft snow towards the bivouac, laughing and excited like so many schoolchildren. Arriving, just as I turned to go into my tent, Peter caught my hand and Alex stood beside me smiling. "Now we will congratulate you, now we are safe down and have beaten all previous records. Look!" and drawing out his watch he pointed to the time, 5.30 p.m. "By Jove! six hours up, two hours there, six and a half down; that time will take some beating, little lady," and Alex shook my other hand vigorously. "Thanks to the two finest guides in the mountains, it will," I answered, and I slipped past them into my tent, and throwing myself down, proceeded to rid myself of putties and boots, preparatory to a well-earned rest. We decided that we were all too tired to do justice to a large meal, so merely indulged in unlimited tea and a tin of frozen peaches, which latter will always have a kindly place in my memory as the most luscious dish ever offered to a hot and thirsty mountaineer.

After the meal was over I threw myself on my sleeping-bag and was shortly lost in oblivion. Waking a couple of hours later, I found that the preparations for a feast befitting the occasion were in full swing. When all was ready we gathered round a bubbling cooker and did justice to savoury tomato soup, cold meat, tinned fruit and bread and butter, the whole washed down with freshly brewed tea. The guides' capacity for the last-mentioned item was somewhat astounding; it vanished by the quart with astonishing ease and rapidity. The remnants of the feast cleared away, we crawled into our sleeping-bags and sought our well-earned rest. I awoke once or twice with cramped