He pointed upward toward the snow peaks, which seemed to be a couple of miles away; and as they followed the direction of his pointing hand, toward quite a chaos of rock and ice to their left, and about half-way to the summit, they looked in vain, till Dale cried—
“There it is!”
“Yes: what?” cried Saxe eagerly. “Oh, I see: that little waterfall!”
For far away there was the semblance of a cascade, pouring over the edge of a black rock, and falling what seemed to be a hundred feet into a hollow, glittering brilliantly the while in the sun.
They watched it for about five minutes; and then, to Saxe’s surprise, the fall ceased, but the deep rushing noise, as of water, was still heard, and suddenly the torrent seemed to gush out below, to the left, and go on again fiercer than ever, but once more to disappear and reappear again and again, till it made one bold leap into a hollow, which apparently communicated with the glacier they had left.
“Hah!” ejaculated Saxe, “it was very beautiful, but— Why, that must have been snow! Was that an avalanche?”
“Yes; didn’t you understand? That is one of the ice-falls that are always coming down from above.”
“I didn’t take it,” said Saxe. “Well, it was very pretty, but not much of it. I should like to see a big one.”
Dale looked at Melchior, and smiled.
“He does not grasp the size of things yet,” he said. “Why, Saxe, my lad, you heard the clap like thunder when the fall first took place?”