“Walking upon it,” said the guide, smiling; “not climbing.”
“Rather a steep bit, isn’t it, Melchior?” said Dale, looking upward.
“Yes, it is steep; but we can do it, and if we slip it will only be a glissade down here again. The rocks are harder to climb, and a slip there would be bad; besides, the stones fall here sometimes rather thickly.”
“But they’ll be worse down that couloir,” said Dale.
“As bad—not worse, herr; but I will go which way you like.”
“Go the best way,” said Dale quietly.
Melchior nodded, and strode on at once for the foot of the narrow rift, which looked like a gully or shoot, down which the snow fell from above.
“Use my steps,” he said quietly; and, with the rope still attached, he began to ascend, kicking his feet into the soft snow as he went on, and sending it flying and rushing down, sparkling in the sunshine, while the others followed his zigzag track with care. There were times when the foothold gave way, but there was no element of danger in the ascent, which did not prove to be so steep as it had looked before it was attacked. But the ascent was long, and the couloir curved round as they climbed higher, displaying a fresh length of ascent invisible from below.
As they turned the corner Melchior paused for them to look about them, and upward toward where the gully ended in a large field of snow, above and beyond which was steeply scarped mountain, rising higher and higher toward a distant snowy peak.
“But we are not going right up that mountain, are we?” cried Saxe, panting and breathless.