Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/264

204 it joined the Linda Glacier. We travelled rapidly in that direction, and were rewarded shortly by the sound of running water. The stream, however, proved to be in rather an unpleasant spot, exposed to a continual hail of small icicles from above. I was for giving up the idea of water at such a risk, but the guides thought otherwise. Eventually Graham untied himself from the rope, and started off with the empty water-bottle and Thermos flask. We watched rather anxiously as he cut his way along, and breathed a relieved sigh when he took shelter under a projecting rock, and proceeded to fill the bottles from a drip there instead of making a dash for the stream. In twenty minutes he was safely back to us, and after quenching our thirst we made all speed for the Linda Glacier, which we reached at 6.15 p.m. We quickly traversed its upper slopes, it being important that we should reach the much-crevassed lower portion before the fall of darkness made crossing it a difficult proceeding. The last gleams of daylight saw us emerging safely from the broken ice, and wearily toiling through the soft snow of the Great Plateau, and up the slopes to Glacier Dome. It was nine o'clock when we stood on the summit of the latter, so we had to face the descent of the 1,000 feet to the bivouac in the dark. We scrambled down the rocks as best we could; and finding the snow slopes below in good condition, we decided to glissade.

It was a strange sensation, sliding smoothly down into the darkness. A faint blur indicated the leader's back. Now and again would come the warning cry, "Crevasse." If it was little we shot over it. If large, we slowed down and sought a bridge. We would hardly have dared this glissade in the dark but for the fact that Thomson had been over the ground a week previously and knew the whereabouts of all the crevasses. Even so, had we examined our route in the cold light of day and common sense, we might have murmured of the valour of ignorance.