Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/99

78 for the hands, but almost invariably proving to be loose and coming away at the slightest touch. The amount of step-cutting involved was extremely irksome to Burgener. His hand was by this time bleeding afresh, and a groan of pain escaped his Ups as each stroke of the axe sent the brittle chips sliding and slithering down the glassy slope. In spite of the wounded hand, the step-cutting had to continue for half an hour or more—half an hour that appeared to me absolutely interminable, as I listened to the groans from in front and to the intermittent sobs and complaints from behind. Andenmatten appeared, indeed, to be in such a deplorable condition that he might faint at any moment; a contingency which suggested that, after all, the Teufelsgrat might have the. best of the game.

Further progress on the ice slope was now barred by an impassable buttress of smooth, black rock, the fangs of a huge tooth which towered high above the ridge. Burgener was forced in consequence to work back to the right, and make his way to the ridge up the chimney or rock couloir by which the tooth was flanked. There was, of course, the obvious objection that this chimney would bring us to the arête on the wrong side of the great tooth, but, as our leader remarked, "Es giebt keinen anderen Weg!" Some rather difficult climbing brought him into the gully. When he had found secure footing, I scrambled up and was stowed