Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/174

Rh chartered two porters to go up to C. P. and fix the rope; we also provided such provision and refreshment for them to carry as would, we thought, add to our comfort and happiness.

At 2 a.m. on the 18th of August, Simond gave me the unpleasant intelligence that the very name of Grépon had so frightened the porters that they had surreptitiously left their beds and fled to Chamonix. The difficulty appeared very serious. 2 a.m. is usually an inconvenient hour to charter porters, and Simond was quite sure that C. P. was impassable from the Grépon side without a rope previously fixed. It appeared, then, likely, that if we reached the gap leading to it we should have to retrace our steps all the way along the ridge. After much talk, Simond offered to lend us the herd-boy attached to the establishment, and also to wake and interview a one-eyed guide, who was sleeping in the hotel, and who had been with M. Dunod on some of his unsuccessful attempts.

This guide, Gaspard Simond, proved willing, and with the herd-boy as second man we started gaily for the valley of stones. Each amateur member of the party was quite sure that the route taken along the detestable slopes of the stone man ridge, was far inferior to the line that such amateur had