“Yes, my lad, but it’s summer all the same. It’s only because we’re so high up, same as you used to see it at home when you looked up towards the mountains and saw them covered with snow.”
“But this doesn’t look like snow, Serge,” said the boy, kicking up the icy particles. “It is more like piled-up heaps of hail after a heavy storm. Ugh! It does look winterly! Ice and snow everywhere, and not a green thing to be seen.”
“All the more reason, boy, why we should push on, get over the highest bit, and then every step we take will be for the better.”
“Shall we be out of this cutting icy wind that comes roaring up between these two great walls of rock?”
“To be sure we shall,” said Serge, cheerfully; “and it’ll be something to talk about when we’ve done it and are down below in the warm sunshine to-morrow morning, eating new bread and drinking milk.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Serge,” said Marcus, beginning to talk in a dull, drowsy way. “I shall want to sleep and rest. I feel as if I could do so now.”
“Do you? Then you mustn’t; and we must stop anyone who tries to. Why, it reminds me, boy, of old times when we crossed that other pass. Some of our men would lie down to sleep, but they never got up again.”
“Why?” cried Marcus, in a horrified tone.
“Frozen stiff, boy. Once you’re up amongst the snow you can’t stop, only to get breath; you must push on; and I wish someone would give me orders to go on now.”
Marcus was silent for a few moments, as if thinking deeply.