"I knew it would be!"

Jean-Paul drew lustily at his water bottle, then rested out against the rope that was connected to his piton by a snap ring. "I had no idea that you gentlemen intended to runup the hill! Have pity on my age!" He laughed hastily, lest anyone imagine he was not joking.

"You will have time to rest now," Karl said. "We shall be here for at least an hour."

"An hour!" Jean-Paul protested. "We have to sit here for an hour?"

"We shall rest and have a little breakfast. It's too early to climb up through the chute."

Jonathan agreed with Karl. Although a climber on the Eiger must expect to be the target for fairly regular sniping by rock and ice fall, there is no sense in facing the veritable fusillade with which the mountain covers its flanks in midmorning. Stones and mountain rubble that are frozen into place through the night are released by the melting touch of morning sun and come arcing, bouncing, and crashing down from the vast collection trough of the White Spider, directly, although distantly, above them. The normal line of ascent is well to the west of this natural line of fire.

"We shall allow the mountain to dump out her morning garbage before we try the chute," Karl announced. "Meanwhile, let us enjoy the scenery and have a bite to eat. Yes?"

Jonathan read in Karl's artificial cheer that he, too, was affected by the roar of water rushing down the chute, but it was equally obvious that he would not be receptive to criticism or advice.

Nevertheless: "Sounds like we have a wet time ahead of us, Karl."

"Surely, Herr Doctor, you have no objection to a morning shower."

"It's going to take a lot out of us, even if it is a go."

"Yes. Mountain climbing is demanding."

"Snot."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Jean-Paul took another drink of water then passed the plastic canteen over to Karl, who returned it, declining to drink. After he had struggled the bottle into his pack, Jean-Paul looked out over the valley with awe and appreciation. "Beautiful, isn't it. Really beautiful. Anna is probably watching us through a telescope at this very moment."

"Probably," Jonathan said, doubting it.

"We'll take the chute in a rope of four," Karl said. "I shall lead: Anderl will bring up the rear."

Jonathan attended again to the sound of the water. "This route would be easier in winter when there is less melt."

Anderl laughed. "Do you suggest we wait?"

Ben heard a bustle of excited talk on the terrace beneath his window, and a distinctly Texan voice epitomized the multi-lingual dirge of complaint.

"Shee-it! How about that? I use my tickets up watching them sit on the rock, then as soon as my time's over, they start doing something. Hey, Floyd? How much was that in real money?"

Ben ran down from his room and into the meadow, well away from the hotel and the Eiger Birds. It took him ten minutes to set up his telescope. From the first, this long diagonal chute of Karl's had worried him more than any other pitch on the climb. The distant face sharpened into focus, then blurred past it, then emerged clear in the eyepiece again. He began at the bottom of the chute and panned up and right, following the dark scar up the face. There was a fuzz of spray at the outlet of the chute that told him it must be a veritable river of rushing melt water, and he knew the climbers would have to fight their way upstream through it, the flow tugging them away from their holds, all the while exposed to the hazards of rock fall that rattled through this natural channel. His palms were clammy by the time he picked up the lowest climber. Yellow jacket: that would be Anderl. And up the thin spider thread of rope to a white jacket: Jean-Paul. Above him was the pale blue windbreaker of Jonathan. Karl was out of sight behind a fold of rock. They were moving erratically and very slowly. That gush of water and ice fragments must be hell, Ben thought. Why don't they break off? Then he realized that they could not retreat. Once committed in a string of four to pressing up through the weight of rushing water they had to go on. The slightest easing off, the slightest cooperation with the downward flow, and they stood a good chance of tumbling down through the channel and arcing out through the fuzz of spray into the void.

At least they were moving up; that was something. They climbed one at a time, while the others found what purchase they could to protect the vulnerable climber. Perhaps Karl had found a secure stance up there out of sight, Ben told himself. Perhaps they were safer than they seemed.

There was a sudden tension in the string of colored dots.

They were no longer moving. Ben's experience told him something had happened.

He cursed at not being able to see better. A slight, impatient movement of the telescope, and he lost them. He swore aloud and located them again in the eyepiece. The thread above Anderl was slack. White jacket—Bidet—was hanging upside down. He had fallen. The rope above him was taut and led up to blue jacket—Jonathan, who was stretched out spreadeagle on the rock. That meant he had been pulled off his stance and was holding his own weight and Bidet's with his hands.

"Where the hell's Karl!" Ben shouted. "Goddam his ass!"

Jonathan clenched his teeth and concentrated his whole being on keeping his fingers curled into the crack above him, He was alone in an agony of effort, isolated by the deafening roar of water just to his left. A steady, numbing stream flowed down his sleeves and froze his armpits and chest. He did not waste breath shouting. He knew that Anderl below would do what he could, and he hoped that Karl above and out of sight had found a crack for a piton and was holding them in a strong stance. The dead weight of Jean-Paul on the rope around his waist was squeezing the air out of him, and he did not know how long he could hold on. A quick look over his shoulder revealed that Anderl was already scrambling, open and unprotected, up through the roaring trough toward Bidet, who had not stirred since the rock that had sung past Jonathan's ear had struck him on the shoulder and knocked him out of his stance. Jean-Paul lay head downward in the middle of the torrent, and the thought flashed through Jonathan's mind that it would be ridiculous to die of drowning on a mountain.

His hands no longer ached; there was no feeling at all. He could not tell if he was gripping hard enough to hold so he squeezed until the muscles in his forearms throbbed. If water or rock knocked Anderl off, he would never be able to hold them both. What in hell was Karl up to!

Then the rope slackened around his middle, and a surge of expanding pain replaced the pressure. Anderl had reached Jean-Paul and had jammed his body crosswise in the chute, holding Bidet in his lap to give Jonathan the slack he needed to recover his stance.

Jonathan pulled upward until his arms vibrated with the effort, and after interminable seconds, one boot found a toehold and the weight was off his hands. They were cut, but not too deeply, and the flow of icy water prevented them from throbbing. As quickly as he dared, he uncoiled enough rope to allow him to climb up, and he followed the arcing line of rope up and around a fold of rock where he found Karl.

"Help me!"

"What's the matter?" Karl had found a niche and was braced in it to belay the climbers below. He had been totally unaware of the crisis beneath him.

"Pull!" Jonathan shouted, and by main strength they dragged Bidet up away from Anderl's wedged body. Not a moment too soon. The strong Austrian's legs had begun to quiver with the task of holding Bidet up.

Anderl bypassed Jean-Paul's inert body and climbed up to the stance recently occupied by Jonathan. Bidet was safe now, held from two points of purchase. From their position, neither Jonathan nor Karl could see what was occurring below, but Anderl told them later that Jean-Paul had a comically quizzical expression on his face as he returned to consciousness and found himself dangling in a vertical river. The falling rock had done him no real damage, but he had struck his head hard against the face when he fell. With the automatic responses of the climber prevailing over his dizziness, he began to scramble up. And before long the four of them were crowded into Karl's small, secure niche.