Carnally found a hold; Andrew seized his arm; and after an arduous struggle he stood, gasping, on a snowy knob. The sharp edge of a big slab rose eight or nine feet above him.
"Take a rest," advised Andrew. "If you go slowly, you ought to get up this last bit."
"I'll have to try. It's a sure thing I can't get down. But how d'you come to be so smart at this work?"
"I used to do something like it in Switzerland."
"Well," said Carnally, "you're a curious kind of man: I guess you didn't have to climb. I'd find it a bit too exciting if I wasn't doing it for money."
"We're not climbing for money now," Andrew grimly reminded him. "There's food ahead of us and we must get on!"
They made the ascent, though it tried their nerve severely. When they finally crawled up to the summit Andrew stopped, growing suddenly white in the face.
Carnally sat down heavily in the snow.
"A dead tree! Nobody put it there; it grew!"