In front of him the wall was plainly inaccessible.

Far away to the left there was a depression up which possibly a way might be forced.
"I think, monsieur, that must be the way," said Pierre.
"But you should _know_" said Garratt Skinner.
"It is some time since I was here.

I have forgotten;" and Pierre began to traverse the ice-slope to the left.

Garratt Skinner followed without a word.

But he knew that when he had ascended Mont Blanc by the Brenva route twenty-three years before, he had kept to the right along the rocks to a point where that ice-wall was crevassed, and through that crevasse had found his path.