Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/233

Rh the previous day's steps through deep, powdery snow, and had to cross the remains of a large avalanche which had evidently descended from the rocks just above us. I noticed that Graham considerably quickened the pace here, though at that early hour of the morning (4.30) there was little danger of another fall. We soon came to the end of the steps, and Milne plodded stolidly on, breaking fresh ones and sinking to the knees at every step, we following in phlegmatic silence. Even the rising of the beautiful morning star shed but a passing beam of cheer as we struggled on. Just about daylight we found ourselves among the large crevasses, where Graham took the lead. The snow was, if possible, a little worse than before, and we wound wearily backwards and forwards and round about looking for bridges over their yawning depths. Once we thought we were cut off altogether, and would have to give up our attempt to reach Dampier: a tremendous crevasse loomed up straight in front of us, blocking all possibility of progress that way. We turned back on our tracks, till Graham at last found the only way open to us. It led us down into one of the widest crevasses. We descended a very steep snow wall to the bottom of the crevasse, and traversed along its left-hand side, the right side being a perpendicular wall of solid blue ice 100 feet high. From the bottom it sloped up gradually to the left, forming a wide basin, up which we ascended, and so out on to the glacier again, having made a detour round our first obstacle. We managed to cross several more crevasses on distinctly frail snow bridges, and at last emerged out of the region of broken ice and began toiling up the