“Because we must husband our strength, so as to always have a little left to use in an emergency. Now, then, we understand each other, do we not?”
“Yes, Mr Dale.”
“Then forward.”
The guide nodded his head good-humouredly; but he did not stir.
“Well?” said the Englishman.
“Let us understand each other,” said the guide quietly. “Those who go up into the mountains must be brothers. Now your life is in danger, and I save you; next my life is in peril, and you save me. A guide is something more than one who goes to show the way.”
“Of course,” said Richard Dale, eyeing the man curiously: “that is why I have chosen you. Friends told me that Melchior Staffeln was a man whom I might trust.”
“I thank them,” said the guide. “And the herr wishes me to be his guide for days and weeks or months, and show him the way up the great mountains as I have shown others?”
“No!” said Dale sharply. “I want you to take me right in among the heights, passes and glaciers where the visitors do not go.”
The guide looked at him fixedly.