“Then——”
A loud toot on a cowhorn close at hand interrupted her. The artist was a small boy. He appeared to be waiting expectantly on a hillock for someone who came not.
“Is that a signal?” she asked.
“Yes. He is a gaumer, or cowherd,—another word for your Alpine vocabulary,—the burgher whose cattle he will drive to the pasture has probably arranged to meet him here.”
Bower was always an interesting and well informed companion. Launched now into a congenial topic, he gave Helen a thoroughly entertaining lecture on the customs of a Swiss commune. He pointed out the successive tiers of pastures, told her their names and seasons of use, and even hummed some verses of the cow songs, or Kuh-reihen, which the men sing to the cattle, addressing each animal by name.
An hour passed pleasantly in this manner. Their guide, a man named Josef Barth, and the porter, who answered to “Karl,” awaited them at the milk chalet by the side of Lake Cavloccio. Bower, evidently accustomed to the leadership of expeditions of this sort, tested their ice axes and examined the ropes slung to Barth’s rucksack.
“The Forno is a glacier de luxe,” he explained to Helen; “but it is always advisable to make sure that your appliances are in good order. That pickel you are carrying was made by the best blacksmith in Grindelwald, and you can depend on its soundness; but these men are so familiar with their surroundings that they often provide themselves with frayed ropes and damaged axes.”
“In addition to my boots, therefore, I am indebted to you for a special brand of ice ax,” she cried.
“Your gratitude now is as nothing to the ecstasy you will display when Karl unpacks his load,” he answered lightly. “Now, Miss Wynton, en route! You know the path to the glacier already, don’t you?”