"Where is your book, young man?" they invariably enquired.
He showed it to them, but the pages were blank, and so no one would take him.
"At last," Imboden went on, "my 20 fr. were all but spent, when I managed to persuade a young Englishman to let me take him up Monte Rosa. I told him I knew the mountain well, and I would not charge him high. So we started. I had never set foot on a glacier before or on any mountain, but there was a good track up the snow, and I followed this, and there were other parties on Monte Rosa, so I copied what the guides did, and roped my gentleman as I saw the guides doing theirs. It was a lovely day, and we got on very well, and my gentleman was much pleased, and offered me an engagement to go to Chamonix with him over high passes.
"Then I said to myself: 'Lies have been very useful till now, but the time has come to speak the truth, and I will do so.'
"So I said to him: 'Herr, until to-day I have never climbed a mountain, but I am strong and active, and I have lived among mountaineers and mountains, and I am sure I can satisfy you if you will take me.'
"He was quite ready to do so, and we crossed the Col du Géant and went up Mont Blanc, but could do no more as the weather was bad. Then he wrote a great deal in my book, and since then I have never been in want of a gentleman to guide."
Imboden's eldest son, Roman, began still younger. When only thirteen he was employed by a member of the Alpine Club, Mr G. S. Barnes, to carry his lunch on the picnics he made with his friends on the glaciers near Saas-Fée. The party eventually undertook more ambitious expeditions, and one evening, Roman, who was very small for his age, was seen entering his native village at the head of a number of climbers who had crossed the Ried Pass, the little boy proudly carrying the largest knapsack of which he could possess himself, a huge coil of rope, and an ice-axe nearly as big as himself. Thus commenced the career of an afterwards famous Alpine guide.
During some fifteen seasons Imboden accompanied me on my climbs, frequently with Roman as second guide. Once the latter went with me to Dauphiné, and, though only twenty-three at the time, took me up the Meije, Ecrins, and other big peaks, his father being detained at home by reason of a bitter feud with the railway company about to run a line through his farm. It is sad to look back to the terrible ending of Roman's career at a period when he was the best young guide in the Alps. How little, in September 1895, as with the Imbodens, father and son, I stood on the summit of the Lyskamm, did any of us think that never again should we be together on a mountain, and that from the very peak on which we were Roman would be precipitated in one awful fall of hundreds of feet, his companions, Dr Guntner and the second guide Ruppen, also losing their lives.
I shall never forget the evening the news reached us at Zermatt. Imboden was, as usual, my guide, but Roman was leading guide to Dr Guntner. A month or two previously this gentleman had written to Roman asking if he would climb with him. Roman showed the letter to his father, saying: "I only go with English people, so I shall refuse." "Do not reply in a hurry," was the answer; "wait and see what the Herr is like, he is coming here soon." So Roman waited, saw Dr Guntner, liked him immensely, and engaged himself, not only till the end of the season, but also for a five months' mountaineering expedition in the Himalayas. We had all arrived at Zermatt from Fée a few days before, and while we waited in the valley for good weather, Dr Guntner, Roman Imboden, and Ruppen went to the Monte Rosa Hut to get some exercise next day on one of the easier peaks in the neighbourhood. Dr Guntner much wished to try the Lyskamm. Roman was against it, as the weather and snow were bad. However, in the morning there was a slight improvement, and as Dr Guntner was still most anxious to attempt the Lyskamm and Roman was so attached to him that he wished to oblige him in every way he could, he consented to, at any rate, go and look at it. Another party followed, feeling secure in the wake of such first-rate climbers, and, though the snow was atrocious and the weather grew worse and worse, no one turned back, and the summit was not far distant.
The gentleman in the second party did not feel very well, and made a long halt on the lower part of the ridge. Something seems to have aroused his suspicions—some drifting snow above, it was said, but I could never understand this part of the story—and an accident was feared. Abandoning the ascent, partly because of illness, partly on account of the weather, the party went down. At the bottom of the ridge, wishing to see if indeed something had gone wrong, they bore over towards the Italian side of the mountain. Directly the snowy plain at the base of the peak became visible, their worst fears were confirmed, for they perceived three black specks lying close together. Examining them through their glasses, it was but too certain that what they saw were the lifeless bodies of Dr Gunnter, Roman, and Ruppen.