A groan and a quick cry of "Hold on!" warned him. With face pressed
against the ice, he made a supreme sticking effort, felt the rope
slacken, and knew Carson was slipping toward him. He did not dare look
up until he felt the rope tighten and knew the other had again come to
rest.

"Gee, that was a near go," Carson chattered. "I came down over a yard.
Now you wait. I've got to dig new holds. If this danged ice wasn't so
melty we'd be hunky-dory."

Holding the few pounds of strain necessary for Smoke with his left hand,
the little man jabbed and chopped at the ice with his right. Ten minutes
of this passed.

"Now, I'll tell you what I've done," Carson called down. "I've made
heel-holds and hand-holes for you alongside of me. I'm going to heave
the rope in slow and easy, and you just come along sticking an' not too
fast. I'll tell you what, first of all. I'll take you on the rope and
you worry out of that pack. Get me?"

Smoke nodded, and with infinite care unbuckled his pack-straps. With a
wriggle of the shoulders he dislodged the pack, and Carson saw it slide
over the bulge and out of sight.

"Now, I'm going to ditch mine," he called down. "You just take it easy
and wait."

Five minutes later the upward struggle began. Smoke, after drying his
hands on the insides of his arm-sleeves, clawed into the climb--bellied,
and clung, and stuck, and plastered--sustained and helped by the pull
of the rope. Alone, he could not have advanced. Despite his muscles,
because of his forty pounds' handicap, he could not cling as did Carson.
A third of the way up, where the pitch was steeper and the ice less
eroded, he felt the strain on the rope decreasing. He moved slower and
slower. Here was no place to stop and remain. His most desperate effort
could not prevent the stop, and he could feel the down-slip beginning.

"I'm going," he called up.

"So am I," was the reply, gritted through Carson's teeth.

"Then cast loose."

Smoke felt the rope tauten in a futile effort, then the pace quickened,
and as he went past his previous lodgment and over the bulge the last
glimpse he caught of Carson he was turned over, with madly moving hands
and feet striving to overcome the downward draw. To Smoke's surprise, as
he went over the bulge, there was no sheer fall. The rope restrained him
as he slid down a steeper pitch, which quickly eased until he came to a
halt in another niche on the verge of another bulge. Carson was now out
of sight