The youth, however, was confident, and the man of experience was too amiable and yielding. There was also urgent reason for haste. It was therefore decided that the steeper slopes should be attempted.
They began with a glissade. A very steep snow-slope happened to be close at hand. It stretched uninterruptedly down several hundred feet to one of the terraces, into which the precipitous mountainside at that place was cut.
“Will you try?” asked Le Croix, looking doubtfully at his companion.
“Of course I will,” replied Lewis, shortly. “Where you choose to go I will follow.”
“Have you ever done such work before?”
“Yes, often, though never on quite so steep or long a slope.”
Le Croix was apparently satisfied. He sat down on the summit of the slope, fixed the spiked end of his axe in the snow, resting heavily on the handle, in order to check his descent, and hitched himself forward.
“Keep steady and don’t roll over,” he cried, as he shot away. The snow rose and trailed like a white tail behind him. His speed increased almost to that of an avalanche, and in a few seconds he was at the bottom.
Lewis seated himself in precisely the same manner, but overbalanced himself when halfway down, swung round, lost self-command, let slip his axe, and finally went head over heels, with legs and arms flying wildly.
Le Croix, half-expecting something of the kind, was prepared. He had re-ascended the slope a short way, and received the human avalanche on his right shoulder, was knocked down violently as a matter of course, and the two went spinning in a heap together to the bottom.