They now reversed positions on the rope, Norman going first, and facing in against the cliff almost as you descend a ladder, crawled down as slowly as they had crawled up. But it was even more trying to Bennie, because he had to look down for each step, and he had to watch the man descending below him, when he was anchored, in order to brace extra firmly in case of a slip. He didn’t get dizzy, but at every step he had to fight a kind of nausea, as if he was going to be sick, especially when he was obliged to lower himself over the two ice walls, with only his spikes to hold him, and the rope, played out by the man above. When they were all at the bottom again, he felt faint, and sat down on the snow a moment, to get back the strength in his legs.
“Well, boys,” he heard his uncle say, “you’ve done what mighty few people do any one season. But we’re not through yet. We’ve got to get home, you know.”
Bennie got up quickly. “I’m all right,” he said. “Lead the way!”
At half-past four o’clock they were back again at the point on the shoulder where they lunched two days before, and here they rested fifteen minutes, and ate the small portions of food they had brought. Nobody was really hungry, however, and soon they were starting down the drift where Dumplin’ slipped. Out across the traverse they went, got over the chutes without accident, though twice they were barely over when great toboggans of ice came whizzing down, and at seven o’clock reached the southwest shoulder. Far below, at timber line, they saw Dumplin’ building up the fire, and they saw, too, his tracks up here in the snow.
“He was up here watching us crossing the traverse,” Bennie said. “He beat it down to cook supper. Good old Dump—wish he could have been with us.”
Off came the rope now, and with wet boots and cracked faces and aching backs and smarting eyes, they half ran, half tumbled, down the last snow-field to the camp, and walked into the odor of boiling coffee and sizzling bacon, while Jeff, released from his tether, came yelping to meet them.
“I saw you on top!” Dumplin’ said. “I spent half the day up on the shoulder. I couldn’t see you climb the pinnacle, but I saw you on top. You didn’t stay there long.”
“Bennie didn’t like it,” his uncle laughed.
“I’ll say I didn’t!” Bennie cried. “Gee, Dump, I’m not fat like you, and I guess I’m in pretty good condition, but I kept feeling all the way up and down that old pinnacle as if I was going to be dizzy the next minute.”
“That’s not a matter of condition with you—it’s a matter of nerves,” said his uncle.