He was scrambling over the boulders frantically. Before he had traversed twenty yards of the uncertain footing of the moraine he fell upon his face. He found the position so much to his liking that he remained on hands and knees, squirming clatteringly over the glassy pebbles. We felt that Gerry was by no means inapt in likening him to a caterpillar on eggs. We sat down to smile, take our breath, and let him overtake us. This he did in the space of about ten minutes, grunting like an overdriven cab-horse, glowing with perspiration, and begrimed with unutterable dirt. He sank with a bump of exhaustion upon a handy slab of granite and began his reproaches.
“You would leave behind your little Lessaution?” he queried accusingly. “Me, who pant, do you see, to gaze upon the wonders of the land. Where had you the heart to treat him so?” and his brown eyes directed an upbraiding glance upon us that might have melted the very stones.
We explained that it was his comfort that had been our first thought, and that we had deemed the way too long and the work too arduous for him. We hinted that the ladies would experience a vivid desolation deprived of his company. We had believed that he would have found ample room and opportunity for research in the immediate vicinity of the vessel. He was not to be appeased.
“No,” he replied; “when they told me that you had set forth, and unknown to me, I asked myself how I had offended you. Is it, I said, that there can be jealousy between two nations who share the responsibilities of civilization? Do they wish that France shall not have her part in this adventure? I could not believe it. I call for the boat. I accoutre myself”—and he pointed with pride to the armory that swayed about him, “and I follow with great speed. Let me offer my comradeship in this expedition. Give me my part in your perils,” and he flung out his arms entreatingly.
How could one refuse a request so touchingly put forth? We welcomed him to our company with effusion, though with inward annoyance. We felt that our progress would of necessity be a great deal tardier in consequence, but in mere charity and courtesy nothing else was to be done.
He further imparted the information that he was not so young as when he was of the foremost runners of the Lycée, and that his little heart was going pit-a-pat. In effect, with this so great racing it quivered like an automobile. But of what consideration was this when he was once again amongst his dear rascals, and accompanying them in their valiant purpose of research? One minute to regain the even tenor of his pulses, and then, forward! Let us press on to victories.
We counselled him bluntly to keep his breath for pure purposes of locomotion, and after a slight rest set forward again to our monotonous stumblings among the endless reaches of heaped stone.
CHAPTER XI
A GLACIER CAVE AND WHAT LAY THEREIN
An hour’s labor saw us well over the moraine, and beginning to worm our way into the deep clefts that gaped in the flanks of the hillside. Heretofore we had kept rigidly to the neighborhood of the shore, but now we had to shift our course inland. The mountain breasted up to the water’s edge sheer and inaccessible. We could see no possible chance of a break in its surface for miles.
There was nothing to do but cross the ridge before us, and take up our quest on the far side. If we found the way rough and dangerous, and deemed it impossible to carry over the sections of our cutter, we should have to return and recommence our quest along the eastern shores. But as far as we had gone there was nothing impracticable for men taking fair precautions and proceeding slowly, though at times the ground was steep and broken.