“Never mind the two snow slopes, herr.”
“I don’t—much,” panted Saxe.
“Don’t look at them, and don’t think of them at all. Think of what you are doing. There is plenty of room for us, good foothold, and nothing to mind. That’s the way: hook on firmly with your ice-axe. It is better than a hand.”
Over and over was this slow process repeated up and up that arête—the little serrated blocks they had seen from below proving mighty masses worn by frost and sunshine till in places they were quite sharp. But, as Melchior said, they gave excellent foothold; and at last the snow above them, a great bed surrounded by rock, was gained, and they all sat down to rest while Dale drew out his watch.
“An hour and five minutes, Melchior,” he said. “And good work, sir. That was a very stiff climb. What are you thinking, young herr?”
“Of how terribly steep the mountain seems from up here,” replied Saxe, who was holding by a piece of granite and gazing down.
“No more steep than it was coming up, lad,” cried Dale. “Now, Melchior! what next?”
“Right across this snow, sir. It is perfectly safe; and then we can take the slope above there, and we are on the shoulder. Then, as we arranged, we’ll take to the rock or the snow again, whichever seems best.”
“Ready, Saxe?”
“Yes,” said the boy shortly; and for the next hour they tramped over snow like hailstones, and then zigzagged up a slope beyond it, where in the steepest places a little cutting became necessary; but this was all mastered in time, and the shoulder was reached, from which half a mile away the final peak arose—a blunt hillock with perfectly smooth snow on one side, bare rock, broken and rugged, on the other, while the snow at the top seemed to have been cut clean off perpendicularly.