Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/61

40 the "shoulder" scrambled towards us, and after inspecting the cliff shouted that it was "ganz unmöglich."

Our leader retreated on hearing this, and we tried to traverse on a line some thirty feet below. This proved wholly impracticable, and the guides on the ridge kindly recommended us to go back by the way we had come. The advice was doubtless well meant, but it roused our ire, and we turned once again to Burgener's original line of effort. After considerable difficulty we succeeded in working our way across and refuting our timorous advisers. We reached the "shoulder" just at the point where the ridge abuts against the final summit.

The other parties, having seen our success was assured, were already ascending, so we tucked ourselves under a great rock, and expressed heartfelt regrets for the Bouvier that was no more, and the good things that we had devoured. Subsequently we scrambled to the top, rattled back to the "shoulder," and should have been in Zermatt by 5 p.m. had I not made an unlucky remark concerning Geister and Todten Leute. These good (or bad?) people had been forgotten amidst the excitement of the climb, but my unlucky remark awakened Burgener to the imminence of the catastrophe that must necessarily overtake us. For some reason which he could not make very clear, he considered it certain that the Geister would either push us off the mountain or drop