They passed quickly beneath an overhanging rib of ice which jutted out from the wall, and reached the angle then formed at four o'clock in the afternoon.
"Our last difficulty, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner, as he cut a large step in which Hine might stand.

"Once up that wall, our troubles are over." Walter Hine looked at the wall.

It was not smooth ice, it was true; blocks had broken loose from it, and had left it bulging out here, there, and in places fissured.

But it stood at an angle of 65 degrees.
It seemed impossible that any one should ascend it.

He looked down the slope up which they had climbed--it seemed equally impossible that any one should return.