Saxe was the first to wake next morning at dawn and rouse Dale and the guide, the little party starting off soon afterward, before the sun was up, with the mule heavily laden, and the goat trotting, along by its side contentedly enough. Once or twice it made a bound or two up the steep rocks by the track, and Saxe was about to start in pursuit.
“There goes my breakfast milk!” he shouted; but the guide restrained him.
“She has only gone to crop a few mouthfuls,” he said; and so it proved, for the active little animal returned to the track again farther on.
The way to the great glacier—or gros gletscher, as Melchior called it—was now familiar, so that the various points of view had ceased to extort ejaculations of wonderment from Saxe, who trudged on, with geological hammer in hand, “tasting,” as he called it, the different stones they passed.
“For who knows?” he said: “I might hit upon gold or silver!”
“You would have to hit that kind of stone much harder to make it produce gold,” said Dale, laughing.
Saxe went on in silence for a time, and then broke out with—
“Never mind: I did find the crystals, and perhaps I shall hit upon another grotto yet.”
“Pray do,” said Dale merrily. “But at any rate we will have a few of the best from the lower grotto in the Black Ravine.”
“Yes; and I would have a good search down there,” said Saxe: “we may find a fresh place.”