Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/173

Rh At about 6 a.m. we paused at the foot of the saddle and sought shelter beneath a projecting ice block. After a long consultation and some argument, the guides decided it was impossible to proceed in such weather. The pass was thick with a raging blizzard, and on the Westland side it would be impossible to see a couple of yards ahead, and to descend the dizzy icy ridge known as the Goat Path, or to find a way through the labyrinth of broken ice and crevasses of the steeply descending Franz Josef Glacier, would be a foolhardy proceeding indeed. Very reluctantly we turned our backs on the nearly gained pass and made all possible speed to the hut, which we reached at 8 a.m. By the time we had comforted ourselves with a hot meal, and were ready to turn into our blankets again, the rain was coming down in torrents, and the temperature dropping steadily.

About five o'clock, as we were all gathered round the kerosine stove, making the best of the warmth it afforded while cooking our dinner, we were startled by a knock upon the door. Opening it, we were confronted by a dripping, shivering, snow-covered party of five. Looking abjectly apologetic they trailed in. Hut ethics demand that when a hut is known to be occupied almost to its full limit, another party shall not proceed to it. The holding capacity of the Malte Brun is eight; with our visitors we now numbered eleven. After they had exchanged their dripping clothes for blanket costumes à la Maori and we were all gathered round the dinner-table, they explained. Wishing to climb some peaks at the head of the Tasman Glacier they had pushed on, hoping that we had managed to sneak across Graham's Saddle before the storm broke.

Blankets and bunks were short that night; two apiece were all we could muster of the former. This, with the snow falling steadily outside and piling itself up in drifts against the walls of the hut, was but a cold