“The snow! The snow at last!” cried Hal and Cis, as they saw the hills and their gleaming sides and peaks; “oh! do let us get down, Mr. Santa Claus.”
“Wait,” he replied; and the cloud glided close to a gorge in one of the mountains, where a mighty foaming torrent[20] rushed down the rocky steeps to the valley beneath, the silver streaks thousands of feet overhead showing where the waters ran out from the glacier fields.
When the cloud stopped, the children jumped off and rushed to the edge of the waterfall, and, holding on to the trees at the side, were about to stoop down for a drink, when Santa Claus cried out, “Do not try to drink there, children, you will be swept away by the rushing waters. Come with me, and I will show you where you can get a draught of clear still water.”
Hal and Cis turned reluctantly, and Santa Claus took them where, in a dry water-course, amid big boulders, they saw clusters of the pure white flowers of the mountain-lily,[21] and their guide, pointing to these, said, “See there, if you are thirsty.”
“The flowers are very beautiful, Mr. Santa Claus,” said Cis, “but it is water we want, and I am so thirsty.”
“Look again,” replied Santa Claus.
There, below the flowers, were large cup-shaped leaves full of clear cold water; Cis and Hal darted forward to gather them and drink, when the leaves seemed to be shaken as if with the wind, but there was not wind enough for that, and, stooping down, they saw two little fat dwarfs holding the stems and shaking with laughter.