He would have jumped down the opposite side of the ice-arete, though how either he or Walter Hine could have regained the ridge he could not tell.

Would any one of the party live to return to Courmayeur and tell the tale?
But Garratt Skinner knew the risk he took, had counted it up long before ever he brought Walter Hine to Chamonix, and thought it worth while.

He did not falter now.

All through the morning, indeed, he had been taking risks, risks of which Walter Hine did not dream; with so firm and yet so delicate a step he had moved from crack to crack, from ice-step up to ice-step; with so obedient a response of his muscles, he had drawn himself up over the rounded rocks from ledge to ledge.

He shouted again to Pierre Delouvain, and at the same moment began carefully to work backward along the ice-arete.