The remaining portion of the ascent was simple enough.

The zigzag onto the top shoulder was if anything less steep than the lower one, and the path, being rougher underfoot, was less treacherous.
The scramble over the loose rocks at the top onto the cairn was not altogether plain sailing.

In summer it was easy enough, but now, with the surface of the great boulders as slippery as glass, it was hardly to be traversed except on the hands and knees.
Poor Julius floundered about pitifully, unable to keep his feet, and disappearing bodily now and then among the interstices of the rocky way.
Even Percy and Jeffreys stumbled once or twice awkwardly, and reached the summit with bruised limbs.

But _finis coronat opus_, especially on a mountain.
As they sprang up the cairn a view unequalled in grandeur broke upon them.

The frosty air was without haze in any quarter.