Half Dome rears its ice-scarred head fully five thousand feet above the level floor of Yosemite Valley.  In the name itself of this great rock lies an accurate and complete description.  Nothing more nor less is it than a cyclopean, rounded dome, split in half as cleanly as an apple that is divided by a knife.  It is, perhaps, quite needless to state that but one-half remains, hence its name, the other half having been carried away by the great ice-river in the stormy time of the Glacial Period.  In that dim day one of those frigid rivers gouged a mighty channel from out the solid rock.  This channel to-day is Yosemite Valley.  But to return to the Half Dome.  On its northeastern side, by circuitous trails and stiff climbing, one may gain the Saddle.  Against the slope of the Dome the Saddle leans like a gigantic slab, and from the top of this slab, one thousand feet in length, curves the great circle to the summit of the Dome.  A few degrees too steep for unaided climbing, these one thousand feet defied for years the adventurous spirits who fixed yearning eyes upon the crest above.

One day, a couple of clear-headed mountaineers had proceeded to insert iron eye-bolts into holes which they drilled into the rock every few feet apart.  But when they found themselves three hundred feet above the Saddle, clinging like flies to the precarious wall with on either hand a yawning abyss, their nerves failed them and they abandoned the enterprise.  So it remained for an indomitable Scotchman, one George Anderson, finally to achieve the feat.  Beginning where they had left off, drilling and climbing for a week, he had at last set foot upon that awful summit and gazed down into the depths where Mirror Lake reposed, nearly a mile beneath.

In the years which followed, many bold men took advantage of the huge rope ladder which he had put in place; but one winter ladder, cables and all were carried away by the snow and ice.  True, most of the eye-bolts, twisted and bent, remained.  But few men had since essayed the hazardous undertaking, and of those few more than one gave up his life on the treacherous heights, and not one succeeded.

But Gus Lafee and Hazard Van Dorn had left the smiling valley-land of California and journeyed into the high Sierras, intent on the great adventure.  And thus it was that their disappointment was deep and grievous when they awoke on this morning to receive the forestalling message of the little white flag.

“Camped at the foot of the Saddle last night and went up at the first peep of day,” Hazard ventured, long after the silent breakfast had been tucked away and the dishes washed.

Gus nodded.  It was not in the nature of things that a youth’s spirits should long remain at low ebb, and his tongue was beginning to loosen.

“Guess he’s down by now, lying in camp and feeling as big as Alexander,” the other went on.  “And I don’t blame him, either; only I wish it were we.”