He went out then and woke the porter. Our ski things were in the kitchen, drying before the fire. Before we left, I locked the door of the manager's office and gave the key to the porter with instructions that no one but the manager was to be allowed into the office. 'The man who came in just now has died,' I told him in Italian. 'We will return in an hour or two and speak to the manager'
His mouth opened and he crossed himself with a scared look. We went out into the snow. After the warmth of that little office, it seemed very cold and dark outside. But there was a faint chill light in the sky to the east where the dawn would soon be breaking. Against it, the mountains towered dark and grim. The wind cut like a knife through our damp clothing and little flurries of powdery snow drove before it.
We had no difficulty in picking up the trail of Engles' skis. He had come down the old Military Patrol track from Faloria. Little splashes of blood showed here and there like crimson pennies in the snow. The track climbed steadily up a sparsely wooded slope. It grew steeper as it turned and twisted along the side of a valley that cut up into the mountains. Once, we passed a big crimson patch in the snow. It was where Engles had had a haemorrhage and had stopped to vomit blood. After that there was no more blood. But when we had climbed out of the wood and were following the ski tracks up a steep slope of tumbled downs of fresh snow, we came upon a spot where he had stopped to relieve himself, and the yellow discoloration was mixed with blood. This alone must have told him that he was seriously injured.
The tracks zig-zagged continuously across the slope now. Once we crossed another set of ski tracks. They had been made by two skiers climbing. They were undoubtedly the tracks of Engles and Keramikos, made on their way up to Faloria.
The sky was paling now and the jagged ridges of Tondi di Faloria stood out black against the chill light of early dawn. For such a good skier Engles had taken the slope very gently. A few hundred yards farther on we came upon the reason. The snow was all churned up around his tracks. He had fallen trying to do a Christi after taking a steep slope straight. The snow was all trampled about where he had struggled to get himself up on to his skis again, and there were red smears in the snow as though bloody clothing had rested on it. Joe had his baby camera with him, and it was here that he took his first picture.
After that the route Engles had come down became steeper and more direct. It looked as though he had been skiing normally, not realising how badly he was hurt, until he took that toss. The tracks were clearer now, for the snow was crisp and frozen and there was no powdery top surface.
In places we had to side-step, for the going was getting steeper. We were right under the Tondi di Faloria now and, as we struggled to the top of the final snow slope, the whole great line of jagged crests was ranged before us — white avalanche slopes gleaming coldly and topped with wicked teeth of black rock.
Straight ahead of us, across a white, rising plain, there was a gap. The Faloria escarpment finished, sweeping down in a frozen snow slope to the gap. The other side of the gap was formed by the lower slopes of the great mountains that swept up to the Sorapis Glacier. And through the gap, rank on rank of cold peaks shone in a watery gleam of the rising sun.
It was Up that frozen snow slope to the right of the gap that Engles must have climbed, with Keramikos behind him, for the track to Faloria ran right along the crest of the ridge. Most of this track ran just below the crest and in places the weight of snow seemed to have become too heavy for the slope and avalanches had spilled in tumbled heaps down the precipitous slope towards us, drawing the snow away from the crest.
To our right a long valley swept towards Tondi di Faloria itself. And here and there in this Valley rock outcrops showed black against the snow. The track of Engles' skis ran straight from one of these outcrops to our feet.