Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/150

 railway will penetrate into the heart of the alps and deposit its thousands and tens of thousands where now only the privileged few may roam. Happy indeed are we who have known this great playground in all its unspoiled grandeur. While we speculate on the folly of official red-tape that blocks the entrance to our Paradise for all but the favoured few, in our hearts we pray that not in our time may come the change. Some day, no doubt, instead of our primitive two-roomed hut, moored to its great boulder against the fury of the alpine gales, a great hotel will look down upon the glacier, that same glacier up which weary pioneers have toiled, hour after hour, weighted with all the necessary provisions. The very timbers of our hut were so carried foot by foot, despite all obstacles. Day after day and week after week, patient men staggered under the awkward and heavy loads—slipping on the narrow ridges, sinking waist-deep into the soft snow, battling with rain and wind—until at last they reared the little hut that has since sheltered so many weary, happy, hopeful people, who never pause to think what their comfort cost. But we who have lived in the lonely hutless heights, we know, and gratefully give our admiration and thanks to the weary toilers of those far-away years.

After the party had rested and the sun's rays were beginning to decline, it was suggested that any one who felt energetic would find some good glissading on the heights at the back of the hut. Nothing loath, some of us were soon toiling up a narrow snow-filled couloir, the cold walls of which were brightened here and there with giant golden buttercups, whose shining painted faces pushed up through the snow with a dauntless persistence that altogether puts their lowland namesake to shame. When we had all struggled to the top of the couloir, we paused for a few moments to regain our breath, and then one by one shot down the steep incline. Who ever forgets the thrill of those swift descents?—the icy breath of the