“It is grand!” cried the boy, gazing excitedly before him at the most wondrous picture that had ever met his eyes.
“Yes,” said Dale; “and it has the advantage that every step we take brings us to something grander. That is only your first peep into Nature’s wilds, some of which are as awful as they are vast. There goes one of the inhabitants.”
For at that moment, soaring high above the valley, a huge bird floated between them and the intensely blue sky.
“An eagle!”
“Yes; the lammergeyer—the Alpine eagle.”
“But what a name!” said Saxe.
“Suitable enough,” said Dale quietly. “We call our little bird of prey a sparrow-hawk. Well, this bird—lammergeyer—is the one which preys on lambs.”
The eagle soared higher and higher till it was well above the perpendicular wall of rock on their left, and then glided onward toward the snow, rapidly passing out of sight; while the trio tramped on, passing a chalet here and another there, with its wooden shingled roof laden with great stones to keep all intact against the terrific winds which at times sweep down the valley from the ice ahead. Now their way lay down by the foaming torrent, half choked with ragged pine trunks, torn out of their birthplaces by tempests, or swept away by downfalls of snow or rock; then they panted up some zigzag, faintly marked, where it was impossible to follow the bed of the stream; and as they climbed higher fresh visions of grandeur opened out before them, though the path was so rugged that much of the view was lost in the attention that had to be given to where they placed their feet. But from time to time a halt was called, a geological hammer produced, and a piece of the rock, that had come bounding down from half a mile above them, was shifted and examined—pure limestone, now granite of some form, or hornblende, while the guide rested upon the head of his axe, and looked on.
“You English are a wonderful people,” he said at last.
“Why?” said Saxe.