“I do not!” Bennie answered. “I’d about as soon try to climb the outside of the Washington Monument. But if you say people have done it, I guess we can. It’s a fight, and I ain’t licked yet!”
The doctor let them rest before they tackled the pinnacle, and gave his orders. “I’ll go ahead and cut the steps. You, Bennie, will anchor, and play me out the rope, and don’t you come on a step till I tell you. Then Stone will play you out till you get to the platform I’ve made for you. Then Spider plays him out, then Norman plays Spider out. We won’t have more than one of the five of us moving at any one time, in other words.”
The doctor rose, and began to hack steps into the snow, in front of his face, on the precipitous incline. He had to cut them deep, to get a firm footing, and it was slow work. Before he was quite played out on his twenty feet of rope, he cut an extra large step, like a little platform, and then moved up a couple of steps, and told Bennie to climb to the platform. Bennie did so, while Mr. Stone played him out. Then Bennie anchored firmly on the platform, and let his uncle cut his way up fifteen or twenty feet farther. Bennie then stepped up two steps, and let Mr. Stone climb to the first platform. Once on it, Mr. Stone played Bennie up, till he was on a second little platform, just behind the doctor. Then the doctor moved ahead twenty feet higher, Bennie moved, Mr. Stone climbed to platform number two, and they all anchored hard, and waited till Spider reached platform number one. In this way, only one man ever climbing at a time, with the rest anchored, they crept slowly up the wall of icy snow. In two places, it was, in fact, not snow but actual ice, and the doctor had to hack out the steps and could not use his stock as he climbed. He had to depend on the spikes in his boots entirely, because he carried no ice ax. Bennie, below him, watched with terror in his heart, and clung to his alpenstock with a rigid grip. If his uncle slipped, nothing would save him but that stock! If Bennie’s grip gave way, they would both go, and maybe pull down all the rest! Here was a battle indeed, here was a fight with the mountain where every single step you took had to be just right, or you were gone! Bennie didn’t dare look down. He kept his eyes fixed on his uncle’s boot soles above him, and refused even to look off to right and left. He didn’t dare.
They climbed steadily, and in silence, except for the orders to each man when he was to advance. Their faces were set and grim. Bennie felt the strain. He was getting tired rapidly, not from the physical effort, which wasn’t really great except for the doctor, but from the mental effort, the incessant concentration on every step he took. At last, after an hour and a half, the doctor went over the top, and shouted back a loud “Hurrah!” Bennie followed him over, and one by one the rest came on, to fall at once down on the snow.
After a long moment, Bennie sat up and looked around him. At first he felt as if he were riding in an airship in the sky. The summit cap of snow was small, and on every side ended in a sharp edge—the edge of a precipice!
“Look at old Hood up there!” his uncle cried, pointing north. “Seems near enough to touch today, and it’s fifty miles off.”
“I don’t want to look at it,” Bennie answered. “I don’t want to look at anything. Gosh, I don’t like this place!”
“I don’t care for it much myself,” Mr. Stone confessed. “You could roll over twice here, and commit suicide with the greatest ease.”
“But we got here!” Spider exclaimed. “I’m glad we got here! We’ve beat the old mountain!”
“Now you’re talking,” said Uncle Billy. “You’ll all like it better when we are down again. Well, come on, let’s start then, if you don’t care for my view.”