pression crossed his
bronzed, lined face. Just one more evidence of the cursed luck that
had marked the expedition from the start!

Well he knew that he must head down at once for Camp No. 4 or risk
death on this barren, wind-swept slope, and equally well he knew that
to go would be to leave his brave companion to his fate, providing he
had not already met it on those desolate ridges above.

Yes, and another thing he knew. The report of this latest disaster
would mean the doom of the expedition. The terrified, superstitious
natives would bolt, claiming the "snow people" had struck again.

"Gods of the Mountain" they called them, those mysterious beings they
alone seemed to see--evil spirits who kept guard over this towering
realm, determined none should gain its ultimate heights.

* * * * *

Tensely Professor Prescott stood there on that narrow shelf of glacial
ice, peering off into the sunset.

A hundred miles to the west, bathed in the refulgence of a thousand
rainbows, rose the incredible peak of Everest, mightiest of all
mountains, yet less than 1,000 feet higher than Kinchinjunga. And
down, straight down those almost vertical slopes up which the
expedition had toiled all summer, lay gorges choked with tropical
growth. Off to the south, a scant fifty miles away, the British health
station of Darjeeling flashed its white villas in the coppery glow.

An awesome spectacle!--one that human eyes had seldom if ever seen.
Yet from the summit, so invitingly near!...

Perhaps, even now, Stoddard was witnessing this incomparable sight. To
push on, to join him, meant triumph. To head down, defeat. While to
stay, to wait....

Grimly, Professor Prescott left his insecure perch and headed up over
that razor-back ridge whence the young geologist had vanished.

As he proceeded cautiously along, drawing sharp, quick breaths in the
rarefied upper atmosphere, he told himself it was ambition that was
leading him on, but in his heart he knew it was not so. In his heart,
he knew he was going to the rescue of his gallant companion, though
the way meant death.

* * * * *

A hundred yards had been gained, perhaps two--each desperate foothold
fraught with peril of a plunge into the yawning abysms to left and
right--when suddenly he spied a figure on a twilit spur ahead.

Panting, he paused. It must be Stoddard! Yet it seemed too small, too
ghostly.

Professor Pre