Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/290

222 it will also be a good base, as there are many fine peaks in the vicinity and much unexplored country.

The bad weather kept us imprisoned for two days and nights. On the third day a guide came through from Waiho, and the party for the Franz Josef set off, though the weather was still anything but settled. Graham and I accompanied them for about four miles, to the bridge over Architect Creek, where pack-horses were awaiting them. Here we said good-bye, and tramped back to our hut. The Copland River was so swollen with the recent rain that it was impossible for us to cross it, so we had to spend another night in the hut waiting for the river to fall. We were bankrupt of provisions, as we had not bargained on being held up for three days. However, the road men lent us some flour and we made some most successful dampers, cooking them in a big pot upon the lid of which we piled red-hot ashes. After a long course of stale bread we found our own fresh loaves delicious, and lived on them for three meals quite contentedly. Next morning we got away early and managed after some difficulty to ford the still swollen river. A generous road man at Douglas Rock presented us with a billy of freshly boiled and most excellent potatoes and a tin of meat; with these we made a good meal and then set off for the Copland Pass. We reached its summit at 6 p.m. and arrived at the Hooker hut at 7.45. I was rather done up, owing to the fact that I had been unable to sleep the last few nights, so decided on having a good nap in a comfortable bunk, instead of walking on the seven miles to the Hermitage that night. Unfortunately for my proposed rest, a party turned up at the hut at 10 p.m. and made so much noise it was impossible to sleep. As they got up again at 2 a.m. and took two hours to get away, all the sleep I got was harmless. We reached the Hermitage in time for breakfast, and I was overjoyed to find that Professor Spencer had arrived during my absence. We found that though Mount Sefton