Josef Barth had borne Stampa’s reproaches with surly deference; but he refused to be degraded in this fashion—before Karl, too, whose tongue wagged so loosely.
“That is the talk of a foolish boy, not of a man,” he cried wrathfully. “Am I not fitted, then, to take mademoiselle home after bringing her here?”
“Truly, on a fine day, Josef,” was the smiling answer.
“I told monsieur that a guxe was blowing up from the south; so did Karl; but he would not hearken. Ma foi! I am not to blame.” Barth, on his dignity, introduced a few words of French picked up from the Chamounix men. He fancied they would awe Stampa, and prove incidentally how wide was his own experience.
The old guide only laughed. “A nice pair, you and Karl,” he shouted. “Are the voyageurs in your care or not? You told monsieur, indeed! You ought to have refused to take mademoiselle. That would have settled the affair, I fancy.”
“But this monsieur knows as much about the mountains as any of us. He might surprise even you, Stampa. He has climbed the Matterhorn from Zermatt and Breuil. He has come down the rock wall on the Col des Nantillons. How is one to argue with such a voyageur on this child’s glacier?”
Stampa whistled. “Oh—knows the Matterhorn, does he? What is his name?”
“Bower,” said Helen,—“Mr. Mark Bower.”
“What! Say that again, fräulein! Mark Bower? Is that your English way of putting it?”