As they moved up the ridge breathing became more difficult. At 19,000 feet they had passed the last rock, and were looking at the summit. It rose as innocently as a snow-covered tennis court, but now the wind was rising and the southern sky darkening, and just at the base of the last lift the gale broke. In a fierce scurry of snow they crawled up the round dome, Mr. La Voy leading and hacking steps. Then came Mr. Belmore Browne's turn, and he realized that his hands were freezing, and that the bitter wind was cutting through his flesh. He dare not get dry mittens from his rucksack lest his hands should be frozen during the change. When his second turn was three-fourths finished, Professor Parker's barometer registered 20,000 feet, and they were within 300 feet of the top. The rest was an evil dream. To each man the other two seemed to be lost in the ice mist, and the cold was freezing their marrow. The storm was growing fiercer, and as they topped a little rise its full fury burst upon them. The story must be given in Mr. Belmore Browne's own words:-- "The breath was driven from my body, and I held to my axe with stooped shoulders to stand against the gale; I could not go ahead. As I brushed the frost from my glasses and squinted upward through the stinging snow I saw a sight that will haunt me to my dying day. _The slope above me was no longer steep_! That was all I could see. What it meant I will never know for certain--all I can say is that we were close to the top!" There was no going on in the teeth of that gale. The three chopped a seat in the ice, trying to find a shelter; but they were not huddled there a second before they discovered they were freezing. There was nothing for it but to return, for the snow was obliterating their back trail. Dead tired and sick at heart they began the journey back, and found that the steps they had cut had disappeared. It took them nearly two hours to go down an easy slope of 1,000 feet. They reached the base of the dome, guiding themselves only by the direction of the wind, and at last at 7.35 p.m. crawled into their upper camp. All their apparel down to their underclothes was filled with ice. They were beaten by the wind, and by the wind only. On a conservative estimate its pace was fifty-five miles an hour, and the temperature fifteen degrees below zero. Otherwise they suffered little from the altitude. Mr. Belmore Browne was able to roll and smoke a cigarette between 18,000 and 19,000 feet. They spent a day in their tent, trying to thaw their clothes. Pemmican they could not touch, their chocolate was finished, and their food was tea, sugar, hardtack, and raisins. It was a cruel fate that they had lost ten days' rations in useless pemmican since leaving their 13,200-feet camp, and they had not only lost the food but carried useless weight.