“There seems to be ample footing,” the doctor remarked.
There did not seem to be any footing to poor Tom, but he did not say so. If they were going up, he was! But those two thousand feet of rock didn’t look much like the three hundred foot slope the scouts used to climb back in Southmead. It was the Great Divide in a single jump, and Tom felt about as small as a fly must feel on the side of the Washington Monument—and a good deal more helpless, because the fly has suckers on his feet, and wings beside.
Iceberg Lake and Glacier
Mills now led the way up the shale pile, just a smooth, insecure slide of sharp, broken stone, mostly in small, irregular, flat pieces something like rotten slate. It wasn’t as slippery as a pile of coal would be, of course, but there was a good deal of tiresome back-slide under one’s feet, none the less.
Close to the top was a snow-field, and Mills examined it.
“They’ve been here—within a day,” he announced, pointing to fresh hoof tracks, and also pointing to spots where the goats had evidently taken bites out of the snow, probably as a dog does when thirsty. Above the snow-field Tom could see just the faintest hint of a trail over the shale, which led up to the base of the solid cliff.
“There she is—this is the way!” the Ranger called.