Hitherto, I had worn a pair of thick moccasins, with soles of parfleche, but here I put on a light, thin pair, which I had brought for the purpose, as now the use of our toes became necessary to a further advance.  I availed myself of a sort of comb of the mountain, which stood against the wall like a buttress, and which the wind and the solar radiation, joined to the steepness of the smooth rock, had kept almost entirely free from snow.  Up this, I made my way rapidly.  Our cautious method of advancing, at the outset, had spared my strength; and, with the exception of a slight disposition to headache, I felt no remains of yesterday’s illness, In a few minutes we reached a point where the buttress was overhanging, and there was no other way of surmounting the difficulty than by passing around one side of it, which was the face of a vertical precipice of several hundred feet.

Putting hands and feet in the crevices between the blocks, I succeeded in getting over it, and, when I reached the top, found my companions in a small valley below.  Descending to them, we continued climbing, and in a short time reached the crest.  I sprang upon the summit, and another step would have precipitated me into an immense snow field, five hundred feet below.  To the edge of this field was a sheer icy precipice; and then, with a gradual fall, the field sloped off for about a mile, until it struck the foot of another lower ridge.  I stood on a narrow crest, about three feet in width, with an inclination of about 20 deg.  N., 51 deg.  E. As soon as I had gratified the first feelings of curiosity, I descended, and each man ascended in his turn; for I would only allow one at a time to mount the unstable and precarious slab, which, it seemed, a breath would hurl into the abyss below.  We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit, and, fixing a ramrod in a crevice, unfurled the national flag to wave in the breeze, where flag never waved before.

[Illustration:  OUR FLAG ON THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.]

During our morning’s ascent, we had met no sign of animal life, except a small sparrow-like bird.  A stillness the most profound, and a terrible solitude, forced themselves constantly on the mind as the great features of the place.  Here, on the summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and solitude complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life; but, while we were sitting on the rock, a solitary bee (bromus, the humble-bee) came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men.

It was a strange place, the icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky mountains, for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the mountain barrier—­a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of civilization.  I believe that a moment’s thought would have made us let him continue his way unharmed; but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated nature seems at war; and, seizing him immediately, put him in at least a fit place—­in the leaves of a large book, among the flowers we had collected on our way.