The next morning we had very little appetite, no ambition, and a miserable sense of malaise and great fatigue.  There was nothing for it but to shoulder our packs, arrange our tump-lines, and proceed with the same steady drudgery—­now a little harder than the day before.  We broke camp at half-past seven and by noon had reached an altitude of about 20,000 feet, on a snow field within a mile of the saddle between the great truncated peak and the rest of the range.  It looked possible to reach the summit in one more day’s climb from here.  The aneroids now differed by over five hundred feet.  Leaving me to pitch the tent, the others went back to the cache to bring up some of the supplies.  Due to the fact that we were carrying loads twice as heavy as those which Tucker and Coello had first brought up, we had not passed their cache until to-day.  By the time my companions appeared again I was so completely rested that I marveled at the snail-like pace they made over the nearly level snow field.  It seemed incredible that they should find it necessary to rest four times after they were within one hundred yards of the camp.

We were none of us hungry that evening.  We craved sweet tea.  Before turning in for the night we took the trouble to melt snow and make a potful of tea which could be warmed up the first thing in the morning.  We passed another very bad night.  The thermometer registered 7 deg.  F., but we did not suffer from the cold.  In fact, when you stow away four men on the floor of a 7 by 7 tent they are obliged to sleep so close together as to keep warm.  Furthermore, each man had an eiderdown sleeping-bag, blankets, and plenty of heavy clothes and sweaters.  We did, however, suffer from soroche.  Violent whooping cough assailed us at frequent intervals.  None of us slept much.  I amused myself by counting my pulse occasionally, only to find that it persistently refused to go below 120, and if I moved would jump up to 135.  I don’t know where it went on the actual climb.  So far as I could determine, it did not go below 120 for four days and nights.

On the morning of October 15th we got up at three o’clock.  Hot sweet tea was the one thing we all craved.  The tea-pot was found to be frozen solid, although it had been hung up in the tent.  It took an hour to thaw and the tea was just warm enough for practical purposes when I made an awkward move in the crowded tent and kicked over the tea-pot!  Never did men keep their tempers better under more aggravating circumstances.  Not a word of reproach or indignation greeted my clumsy accident, although poor Corporal Gamarra, who was lying on the down side of the tent, had to beat a hasty retreat into the colder (but somewhat drier) weather outside.  My clumsiness necessitated a delay of nearly an hour in starting.  While we were melting more frozen snow and re-making the tea, we warmed up some pea soup and Irish stew.  Tucker and I managed to eat a little.  Coello and Gamarra had no stomachs for anything but tea.