mist, but no such chance offered, and we reached Stony Gully without making a start up. Here we saw the ‘rake’ or traverse that has been described as passing along the face about two-thirds of the way up. It was an obvious course to take, inasmuch as it led to within a few feet of the foot of the Oblique Chimney--so near that even the dense mist could scarcely prevent our striking it. Here the classic assured us that he would much prefer ascending by Stony Gully to the top of Gable, and that it would give him extreme pleasure to carry our lunch up to the cairn and wait for us there. We let him go, and promised that we should join him again by three o’clock in the afternoon. Thus did we lose our lunch, not to find it again for another week. There was much ice and fresh snow plastering the rocks, and the so-called ‘easy’ traverse wanted all our care. K. was an expert Alpine climber, his friend A. a plucky young Harrovian with plenty of nerve and endurance in him, but at that time with next to nothing in the way of experience of the mountains. He came along well enough, but our pace was necessarily very slow. Three o’clock found us still working westwards on the traverse, but without a sight of the Oblique Chimney. I think in one place we must have descended too much. At any rate, we found ourselves in difficulties on a sloping slab of glazed rock that gave me serious pause. A. slipped on this, and started slithering away rapidly. Luckily he held his axe tightly, and was brought up by the rope with a jerk. Shortly after this, he pointed to some blood on the rocks, and solicitously asked me whether I had cut myself very badly. It turned out, after a hasty glance at my hands, that he himself was the wounded one. My little complaint was a slight frostbite in the finger-tips, my gloves having been worn threadbare by much scraping with the hands.