“It took, too, long thought and study of some of our greatest men to find it out,” said Dale, “and I am glad to have come to a valley which shows all we have read so plainly.”
“Stop! take care!” shouted Melchior, as a strange rushing sound was heard high up on their right; and directly after a large stone came bounding down the slope, fell on the smooth rocks before them, and smashed to atoms.
Melchior stood looking up, shading his eyes.
“That is curious,” he said thoughtfully. “I do not know why that stone should have fallen.”
“Loosened by the frost, man.”
“No, herr. It could not have come from high enough. There is no ice up there. You have to pass another valley first. The high mountain is beyond it, and the stones would fall into the next valley.”
“It must have been loosened, then, by the rain.”
“Perhaps, herr; but it is more likely that a goat— No, there are no goats pastured so far up as this, and no man could be travelling up there. Herr, would you like to shoot a chamois?”
“Indeed I should; but we have no gun.”
“No, herr, I forgot: we have no gun. But that must have been a chamois. We are getting into the wild region where they live, though this is low down for them.”