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It seemed a good deal of time was consumed in reaching my vantage-point. When I did get there the crack was a foot over my head. If I had only been tall like Steele! There was nothing to do but find toe-holes in the crumbling walls, and by bracing knees on one side, back against the other, hold myself up to the crack. Once with my eye there I did not care what risk I ran.

For three hours we wandered up and down and in and out of huge unseen caves, now and then crawling up or down three or four hundred foot "stopes" on hands and knees, by ladders, stone steps, or toe-holes in the rock.

It was minutes before we could proceed. "Afterwards I learned that these hellish eruptions of air betoken a change of temperature. It was coming then shortly in a dense rainfall. "When we were recovered, we sought about for a way to circumambulate the crevasse. Then we remarked that up a huge boulder of ice that had seemed to block our path recent steps, or toe-holes, had been cut.

"Maybe you didn't know that shoes are to be worn like that this summer. It makes them much cooler in hot weather." Well, Mr. Crow liked the idea. He said so, too. He certainly couldn't wear the shoes as they were. And if everybody else was going to wear shoes with toe-holes, he didn't want to be behind the times. But he hadn't seen anybody with shoes made after that fashion.

When he did get there the crack he had marked was a foot over his head. There was nothing to do but find toe-holes in the crumbling walls, and by bracing knees on one side, back against the other, hold himself up Once with his eye there he did not care what risk he ran. Longstreth appeared disturbed; he sat stroking his mustache; his brow was clouded.

At last, in order to prevent myself from falling over backwards, I was obliged to thrust my hand into the crack between the ice and the wall, and the spire became so narrow that I could do this on both sides; so that the climb was made as upon a tree, cutting mere toe-holes and embracing the whole column of ice in my arms.