“Let’s get on, then,” said Saxe eagerly. “But hallo! how are we to get the mule up that pile of rocks?”
“That!” said the guide quietly; “he will climb that better than we shall.”
He was right, for the sure-footed creature breasted the obstacle of a hundred feet of piled-up blocks very coolly, picking his way patiently, and with a certainty that was surprising.
“Why, the mule is as active as a goat!” cried Dale.
“Well, not quite, herr,” said Melchior. “But, as I said, you will find that he will go anywhere that we do, except upon the ice. There he loses his footing at once, and the labour is too great to cut steps for an animal like that.”
The great pile of loose blocks was surmounted, and at the top Saxe stood and saw that it was evidently the remains of a slip from the mountain up to their right, which had fallen perhaps hundreds of years before, and blocked up the narrow gorge, forming a long, deep, winding lake in the mountain solitude.
“Fish? Oh yes—plenty,” said the guide, “and easily caught; but they are very small. There is not food enough for them to grow big and heavy, as they do in the large lakes.”
“Well,” said Dale, after a few minutes’ study of their surroundings, “this is wild and grand indeed. How far does the lake run up there? Of course it winds round more at the other end!”
“Yes, herr, for miles; and gets narrower, till it is like a river.”
“Grand indeed; but it is like a vast stone wall all round, and as far as we can see. Must we go back again?”