“Ah! that sounds better. Is it much visited?”
“Never, herr, except by the chamois hunters, and very seldom by them.”
“And you think we shall find what I want there?”
“I cannot say, herr. Such crystals as you seek are not often discovered. They are very rare. But we shall see. Steady, Gros, steady! Don’t hurry, boy. Slow and sure: these stones are slippery.”
“Slippery! Yes,” cried Dale, stepping forward quickly, and then giving a glance up to right and left at the walls of rock rising on either side. “Look at this, Saxe: we must not pass things like these without notice. Wait a minute, Melchior.”
“Yes, herr; but there are bigger and smoother pieces farther up the valley.”
“Do they extend far?”
“Right up to the top of the pass, herr, and down the other side.”
Saxe looked over at the huge mass of smoothly polished stone across which the mule had been picking its way, taking longer steps to get its hoofs on the narrow cracks and places where veins of a softer kind of rock had in the course of ages corroded away.
“Why, I thought you said that very few people came along here?” said Saxe suddenly, as Dale bent down here and there to examine the stone.