"But what is it that Joseph has picked up from the snow, and is examining so carefully?"
"No matter—'twas not what we sought," but it was something closely connected with it.
"Yes, there is no doubt of it; they have been here, and lately too! See the sharp hoof-prints just above! They must have crossed this morning! Go it, ye cripples (in prospectu), we must cross this, come what may."
We got along steadily, without any slides, though with many slips, always sticking our staves convulsively into the snow the moment our heels seemed to have the slightest disposition to assume the altitude of our heads. It was nervous work—one slip, one moment too late in thrusting our staff perpendicularly in the snow, as an anchor, and away we should have shot like a meteor over the glittering surface for a hundred terrible yards, and then with a wild bound have been launched into the abyss below. However, we could not have turned back if we had wished it, and at last, to our intense satisfaction, we grasped the rough rock that bounded the further side of the field. Grasped it!—we embraced it!—we clung to its rough surface as if we had been six months at sea, and had landed in the Hesperides!
At length on the summit of the ridge, we were able to crouch down and look through a crack in the rock into the next valley. Round and about, above and below, we examined every hole and corner; half-a-dozen times some villanous stone made our hearts leap to our mouths. But alas! "it was no go;" there was not a living thing in sight—barrenness, barrenness, and desolation.
Our chance of chamois was utterly over for the day. N'importe. Better luck to-morrow. Who can feel out of spirits in that brisk mountain atmosphere? There is the highest peak of the Wildgrad Kögle right before us—and hang him, we'll dine on his head.
The ridge on which we found ourselves was but a few feet broad, and about a hundred and fifty feet above the snow on each side. It was composed of innumerable irregular pillar-like masses of rock, of different heights and distances, impossible to descend at the point where we found ourselves, but as it ran at the same general level, we fancied that we could get on the sloping mass of snow which lay on the side of the peak at some distance on. Jumping from one small table of rock to another—now only saved from "immortal smash" by Joseph's strong arm, and now swaying doubtfully on a plateau the size of a small dumb-waiter top, uncertain whether we should be off or not—we hopped along, wishing we were kangaroos, till we found a crevice which seemed practicable, and down which I went with a run—or rather a slide, much quicker than was agreeable, being only brought up by my feet coming on Joseph's broad shoulders, he taking, as I must confess he generally did, the first place, whereby he always came in for a double allowance of stones and gravel, but about which he seemed utterly indifferent.
On reaching the bottom, we found that, as usual, the snow had melted some distance from the rock, leaving a mighty pretty crack to receive us. However, a lucky jump landed us safely, and for a moment erect, on the snow, and then head over heels, rolling, and bumping, and kicking, we spun over the slippery surface till we managed to bring ourselves up about fifty yards below where we had started. But in spite of tumbles we were in high spirits: there were no gems to frighten, and no more tottering avalanches, ready to fall on our heads if we as much as ventured to use our pocket-handkerchiefs.
We toiled up the terribly steep snow-patch merrily enough, not without retracing our path several times in a manner at once undignified and unexpected—though it certainly was not to be complained of as far as speed went—and reached, at last, utterly blown and sick with exertion, the base of the rock forming the summit of the mountain. Hardly giving ourselves time to recover, we climbed up the last sixty or seventy feet of cliff, and I found myself—first this time, for a wonder—on a small platform, the summit of the Wildgrad Kögle.
The platform was some ten or twelve feet square, and the only approach to it was on the side we had ascended; on every other the cliff ran down in a sheer wall, how deep I know not, for I never could judge of distances from above.