Trudging wearily on, I reached the high camp at sunset, and pitched my tent in the excavation previously occupied. An alpenstock was used for one tent-pole, and snow saturated with water, piled up in a column, for the other; the snow froze in a few minutes, and held the tent securely. The ends of the ridge-rope were then stamped into the snow, and water was poured over them; the edges of the tent were treated in a similar manner, and my shelter was ready for occupation. After cooking some supper over the oil-stove, I rolled myself in a blanket and slept the sleep of the weary. I was awakened in the morning by snow drifting into my tent, and on looking out discovered that I was again caught in a blinding storm or mist of snow. The storm raged all day and all night, and continued without interruption until the evening of the second day. The coal oil becoming exhausted, a can was filled with bacon grease, in which a cotton rag was placed for a wick; and over this "witch lamp" I did my cooking during the remainder of my stay. The snow, falling steadily, soon buried my tent, already surrounded on three sides by an icy wall higher than my head, and it was only by almost constant exertion that it was kept from being crushed in. With a pint basin for a shovel I cleared the tent as best I could, and several times during the day re-excavated the hole leading down to the pond, which had long since disappeared beneath the level plain of white. The excavation of a tunnel in the snow was also begun in the expectation that the tent would become uninhabitable. The following night it became impossible to keep the tent clear in spite of energetic efforts, and early in the morning it was crushed in by a great weight of snow, {155} leaving me no alternative but to finish my snow-house and move in. A tunnel some four or five feet in length was excavated in the snow, and a chamber about six feet long by four feet wide and three feet high was made at right angles to the tunnel. In this chamber I placed my blankets and other belongings, and, hanging a rubber coat on an alpenstock at the entrance, found myself well sheltered from the tempest. There I passed the day and the night following. At night the darkness and silence in my narrow tomb-like cell was oppressive; not a sound broke the stillness except the distant, muffled roar of an occasional avalanche. I slept soundly, however, and in the morning was awakened by the croaking of a raven on the snow immediately above my head. The grotto was filled with a soft blue light, but a pink radiance at the entrance told that the day had dawned bright and clear.