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Some 20 days later, Paxton's party reached the first settlement in Ladakh Province, on the Indian side of the Himalayas. But the worst day was still to come. At Kardang Pass the travelers faced a 400-foot glacier, slick as mirror-glass and tilted at a 45° angle. They dismounted and crept on foot up a narrow path hacked in the ice. Donkeys and horses had to be helped up the treacherous slope. Gallant Vincoe had come close to the end of her tether. The caravan cook encouraged her, step by step: "Put this foot here, now that one there, now this one here . . ."
At last they tottered into Ladakh's capital. The Indian army made them comfortable for the night and sent out yaks for their abandoned baggage. Last week a U.S. embassy plane flew the travelers into Delhi. They had covered some 2,500 miles in ten weeks. John Hall Paxton was ready for his vacation.