“But when we do the young herr will be as eager as ever.”
“Oh!”
“Is the young herr in pain?”
“No: only when I move. My arms are so stiff. I say, don’t you feel a bit sore from your work yesterday?”
“Oh yes, herr,” said the guide, smiling; “but the best way to ease pains like those is not to think about them.”
“I dare say it is,” grumbled Saxe; “but it seems to me that it would be easier to bear the pain. I couldn’t forget a thing that’s always reminding you that you are sore. But there, I am glad it’s to-night. I shall go to roost in good time, so as to get a fine long sleep.”
Saxe kept his word, and he slept soundly, only waking once when the mule uttered one of its peculiar squeals. But no one was sufficiently alarmed to get up, and the incident was forgotten next morning, when one of many days of an uneventful nature commenced, during which the party made excursions in different directions: into the ice grotto; across the glacier to the Bergstock; up to first one and then another snowfield, and among magnificent views in all directions, and under endless atmospheric changes such as gave constant variety to the surroundings. And every night Saxe confided to Melchior that he was tired of it all, and every morning was refreshed and ready for fresh action.
The perils of the crevasse adventure were almost forgotten; but it seemed to the boy that Dale shrank from going into any fresh danger, and this troubled him.
“I suppose Mr Dale thinks I behaved badly, and was too young,” he said. “But only let me have a chance, and I’ll show him I am not such a coward as he thinks.”
Then came the evening when Melchior announced that the food supply must be renewed by a long journey to Andregg’s chalet, for bread and coffee and butter could not be easily obtained, like wood.