Post 00662
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Twice, while guiding, I broke my lifelong rule never to take a tip. One tip had with it a surprise to redeem the taking. It came from the gentleman who had organized the party. On the way up he begged leave to set the pace and to lead the party to the top. He appeared sensible, but I made a blunder by consenting to the arrangement, for his pace was too rapid, and at Keyhole he was attacked by nausea. He pluckily insisted that we go on to the summit and leave him behind. It was five hours before we returned to him. For two hours he had lain helpless in a cold rain and was badly chilled. He was so limp and loose-jointed that it was difficult to carry him across the moraine called Boulderfield. At the Inn the following morning he was completely restored. I was still so exhausted from getting him down that when he insisted that he be allowed to give me a tip in addition to the guiding fee I agreed to accept it. The instant I had consented it occurred to me that a tip from a millionaire for the saving of his life would be worth while. I was startled when, with a satisfied expression, he handed me twenty-five cents!
Early one season, before the ice had melted, one of my five climbers met with an accident in one of the most dangerous places along the way. We were descending, and I was in front, watching each one closely as he crossed a narrow and extremely steep tongue of ice. The gentleman who brought up the rear was a good climber when not talking; but this time he was chattering away and failed to notice me when I signaled him for silence while each climber, in turn, carefully crossed the steep ice in the footholds chopped for that purpose. Still talking, he stepped out on the ice without looking and missed the foothold! Both feet shot from beneath him, and down the smooth, deadly steep he plunged.
Early in guiding I had considered the dangerous places and planned just where to stand while the climbers passed them and just what to do in case of accident. When an accident actually occurred, it was a simple matter to go through a ticklish grand-stand performance that had been practiced dozens of times, and which for years I had been ready to put into effect. The instant he slipped, I made a quick leap for a point of rock that barely pierced the steep ice-tongue. This ice was steeper than half pitch. He shot down, clawing desperately and helplessly, with momentum sufficient to knock over half a dozen men. There was just time to grab him by the coat as he shot by the rock. Bracing with all my might to hold him for a fraction of a second so as to divert him and point him at an angle off the ice, I jumped upward as the violent jerk came. We went off as it were on a tangent, and landed in a heap upon the stones, several yards below the spot from which I had leaped to the rescue. His life was saved.