Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/80

Rh minutes again forced him to recoil, and, with a melancholy air, he showed me his right wrist, badly swollen with the strain of one-handed step cutting. Happily the shelf was nearly completed, and, advancing once more, he was able to reach the snow ribbon with his axe. It afforded, however, no support, being loose and incoherent to its very core; so the weary cutting had to go on till he could set his foot on the treacherously piled mass. Very cautiously he tried to tread it down, and then slowly swung his weight on to it. Needless to say, I watched eagerly the behaviour of the snow. If it slithered away bodily, as it seemed much inclined to do, nothing could prevent our making a short and rapid descent to the Bergschrund.

Happily, though a good deal streamed down in incipient avalanches, the core stood firm, and a hoarse shout of triumph relieved the pent-up feelings of the party. Burgener immediately began to force his way up the knife-edge which formed the upper surface of the ribbon, one leg on one side and one on the other. Our whole length of rope being paid out I shuffled along the shelf, past the corner, and up to my companion. Before us was a long open ice slope, through which occasional rocks projected. The slight support so afforded had sufficed to hold long ribbons of dust-like snow in position above them, and we perceived with joy that the final