y
easily might have been made to last a month in case of my being closely
snowbound. Well I knew the weariness of snow-climbing, and the frosts,
and the dangers of mountaineering so late in the year; therefore I could
not ask a guide to go with me, even had one been willing. All I wanted
was to have blankets and provisions deposited as far up in the timber as
the snow would permit a pack animal to go. There I could build a
storm nest and lie warm, and make raids up and around the mountain in
accordance with the weather.

Setting out on the afternoon of November first, with Jerome Fay,
mountaineer and guide, in charge of the animals, I was soon plodding
wearily upward through the muffled winter woods, the snow of course
growing steadily deeper and looser, so that we had to break a trail. The
animals began to get discouraged, and after night and darkness came on
they became entangled in a bed of rough lava, where, breaking through
four or five feet of mealy snow, their feet were caught between angular
boulders. Here they were in danger of being lost, but after we had
removed packs and saddles and assisted their efforts with ropes, they
all escaped to the side of a ridge about a thousand feet below the
timberline.

To go farther was out of the question, so we were compelled to camp as
best we could. A pitch pine fire speedily changed the temperature
and shed a blaze of light on the wild lava-slope and the straggling
storm-bent pines around us. Melted snow answered for coffee, and we
had plenty of venison to roast. Toward midnight I rolled myself in my
blankets, slept an hour and a half, arose and ate more venison, tied two
days' provisions to my belt, and set out for the summit, hoping to reach
it ere the coming storm should fall. Jerome accompanied me a little
distance above camp and indicated the way as well as he could in the
darkness. He seemed loath to leave me, but, being reassured that I was
at home and required no care, he bade me good-bye and returned to camp,
ready to lead his animals down the mountain at daybreak.

After I was above the dwarf pines, it was fine practice pushing up the
broad unbroken slopes of snow, alone in the solemn silence of the night.
Half the sky was clouded; in the other half the stars sparkled icily in
the keen, frosty air; while everywhere the glorious wealth of snow fell
away from the summit of the cone in flowing folds, more extensive and
continuous than any I had ever seen before.