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　　Having passed what I considered the worst obstacle, our spirits rose. We 1 towards the left of the cliff, where the going was better, 2 rather steeper. Here we found little snow, 3 most of it seemed to have been 4 off the mountain. There was no 5 of the mountain in the distance because the clouds were forming all around us.

　　About 1 o’clock a storm 6 suddenly. We had time to have 7 its approach but we were concentrating on cutting steps, and 8 we had time to do anything, we were blinded by snow. We could not move up or down and had to wait 9 , getting colder and colder. 10 my hood(兜帽), my nose and cheeks were frostbitten and I dared not take a hand out of my glove to warm them.

　　After two hours of this, I realized we would have to do 11 to avoid being frozen to death where we stood. From time to time through the mist I had 12 the outline of a dark buttress(扶壁)just above us, to descend in the wind was 13 question; our only hope was to scramble up to this buttress, and dig out a platform at the foot of it on which we could 14 our tent.

　　We climbed to this place and started to 15 the ice. At first my companion seemed to regard the 16 as hopeless but gradually the wind 17 and he cheered up. 18 we had made a platform big enough to put up the tent, and we did this as 19 we could. We 20 into our sleeping bags and fell asleep, felling that we were lucky to be still alive.

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　　Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects 1 some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insects would make 2 impossible for us to live in the world. They would devour (eat up quickly) all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, were it not 3 the protection we get from insect-eating animals. We 4 a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them 5 together kill only a fraction of the 6 destroyed by spiders. 7 , unlike some of the insect eaters, spiders never do the least 8 to us or our belongings.

　　Spiders are not insects, 9 many people think, 10 even nearly related to them. One can tell the 11 almost at a glance, 12 a spider always has eight legs but an insect never more than six.

　　How many spiders are 13 in this work on our 14 ? One authority 15 spiders made a 16 of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2 250 000 in one acre; that is 17 like 6000 000 spiders of different kinds on a football field. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is 18 to make more than the 19 guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creature, not 20 with only three meals a day.