The article-writing kind of explorer, of whom I am happy to say I am not one, has been responsible for the prevalent illusion that one who has climbed lesser peaks can realize what we faced in the conquest of Mt. Child Memorial. This is false. Those who have climbed the lesser peaks like the Farnsworth, or the loftier General Reading Room, can realize only in a degree the perils of the dash to the Child Memorial top that our party attempted last January.

I say "attempted" because somewhere up there, at the Top of the Widener, swept by the mighty corridor drafts that are forever playing about the summit, stained by the thousand changes of weather and the weekly change of floor-mops, lie the bones of two gallant gentlemen, my friends, two of the bravest explorers that ever cheated a native.

We had at first planned to pitch our base camp on the Farnsworth-Treasure Room Plateau, but by dint of much boosting from behind we were able to drive our pack animals higher. Sliding, slipping, going down on all four haunches (something a yak is rarely forced, or even able, to do) the animals somehow reached the General Reading Plateau. Here we pitched Camp No. 1, twenty thousand feet above the sea, one hundred feet above the street car line.

Morning came. We wanted breakfast. "Holloa! Holloa!" we called to our porters. No answer. We looked about us--not a striped tie. We used powerful glasses--not a club-carrying guide in sight. Crazed with terror by the strange surroundings, they had fled while we slept. What to do?

Fritz, dear old Fritz McCarthy, to whom I would soon say goodbye forever, had one of his thoughts. "Wait a year," he said with the roguish twinkle that gained him the reputation of "funster" around camp. He strapped on his climbing shoes with the heavy iron spikes, and disappeared across the plateau and into the Reading Room. A minute later he came in sight. He had two natives under each arm, whose whole lives, as he told us, had been spent in the vicinity of the peak. Had they ever been to the top? Answering with fluent hands in sign language they said, No, they never went so high, but they knew the way.

At nine o'clock that morning Camp No. 2 had been pitched on the landing. Our guides, accustomed to the long grind, were so industrious that at four that afternoon the white tent of Camp No. 3, which was to be our highest camp, had been pitched on the landing nearest the summit. From this camp Fritz and Murgatroyd were to make the final dash. By seven o'clock the tent was full of meteorological instruments and empty bottles. At nine o'clock Fritz bought back his watch for ten blue chips, looked at it and at Murgatroyd, snapped it shut, rose and spoke: "It's come, boys."

There was no formality in the farewell. Simply a grip of strong hands, blue eyes searching each other, a whispered message for Murgatroyd's tutor, and they were gone--up.

Up! Lifting one foot slowly above the other, lungs suffocating, nothing but the marble precipice below and the sky-light above. Past niches cut in the smooth marble as if for statues. No statues there! They were carved by explorers who had died in the Child Memorial climb, cremated themselves, and placed their ashes here, to be blown to the four winds of heaven. In some cases a few ashes still remained.

McCarthy and Murgatroyd were never seen again.

Different explanations have been advanced for the tragedy, which has come to be known as "the Child Memorial Climb affair". Some have said they lost their way, wandered around the peak, and died in the deep bernhardts of the Theatre Collection. Others have said they reached the summit, only to meet the white card that had already broken so many slout hearts: "Open only from 8 to 6 on misty, moisty mornings."

We who watched from Camp No. 3 know only this: that about 9.55.32 on that evening a sudden darkness fell about us. Twenty seconds later it was light again, but by then, as we now believe, Murgatroyd and McCarthy had walked into the elevator shaft.