times. Pointer's narrative is the best. He
tells how the little party worked their difficult and almost
vertical way up to the very foot of the last and greatest
precipice, and how they built a night shelter amidst the snow upon
a little shelf of rock, and, with a touch of real dramatic power,
how presently they found Nunez had gone from them. They shouted,
and there was no reply; shouted and whistled, and for the rest of
that night they slept no more.

As the morning broke they saw the traces of his fall. It
seems impossible he could have uttered a sound. He had slipped
eastward towards the unknown side of the mountain; far below he had
struck a steep slope of snow, and ploughed his way down it in the
midst of a snow avalanche. His track went straight to the edge of
a frightful precipice, and beyond that everything was hidden. Far,
far below, and hazy with distance, they could see trees rising out
of a narrow, shut-in valley--the lost Country of the Blind. But
they did not know it was the lost Country of the Blind, nor
distinguish it in any way from any other narrow streak of upland
valley. Unnerved by this disaster, they abandoned their attempt in
the afternoon, and Pointer was called away to the war before he
could make another attack. To this day Parascotopetl lifts an
unconquered crest, and Pointer's shelter crumbles unvisited amidst
the snows.

And the man who fell survived.

At the end of the slope he fell a thousand feet, and came down
in the midst of a cloud of snow upon a snow-slope even steeper than
the one above. Down this he was whirled, stunned and insensible,
but without a bone broken in his body; and then at last came to
gentler slopes, and at last rolled out and lay still, buried amidst
a softening heap of the white masses that had accompanied and saved
him. He came to himself with a dim fancy that he was ill in bed;
then realized his position with a mountaineer's intelligence and
worked himself loose and, after a rest or so, out until he saw the
stars. He rested flat upon his chest for a space, wondering where
he was and what had happened to him. He explored his limbs, and
discovered that several of his buttons were gone and his coat
turned over his head. His knife had gone from his pocket and his
hat was lost, though he had tied it under his chin. He recalled
that he had been looking for loose stones to raise his piece of the
shelter wall. His ice-axe had disappeared.

He decid