Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/280

214 followed along the shores of the lake, on shingle slopes saturated and unstable. Here I had the doubtful pleasure of watching the shingle give way under my guide's weight and deposit him in the lake; certainly it did not make him any wetter than before he fell in, as that was not possible; however, I took considerable precautions not to follow his example. After seeing all there was to be seen, we returned home via the old moraine and had a look at the Hooker River, which is always a grand sight in flood. We arrived home in time for breakfast, and I there raised the envy of my friends by describing our doings while they had been peacefully sleeping.

After breakfast it was decided that if a breakwater could be built to turn the main course of the stream away from the Hermitage it would be a great advantage. After watching a couple of the guides at this work for about half an hour, three of us (all women) decided we could not bear inactivity any longer, so shedding as many garments as was compatible with decency, we started out to help. Never have I spent a more strenuous morning. We dragged the trees, shrubs, and boulders deposited by the flood, and piled them upon the wall. We were working all the time in icy water, which varied from ankle to waist deep. After two hours we had dragged all that our strength, single and combined, could cope with, but the stream was diverted and the wall well on the way to permanency. The hard exertion kept us moderately warm, and when the icy water began to be too much for us, we had only to take a wild sprint up the valley in search of more driftwood to return glowing and ready for the fray once more. We all enjoyed the fight immensely, and wondered how the rest of the tourists (not a man offered to help) could sit placidly on the verandah and watch the proceedings without wanting to join in. They in their turn, no doubt, thought we were qualifying for a lunatic asylum, if not already fit to be