George Manville Fenn

"The Crystal Hunters"

Chapter One.

Two Men and a Boy.

“Steady there! Stop! Hold hard!”

“What’s the matter, Mr Dale?”

“Matter, Saxe, my boy? Well, this. I undertook to take you back to your father and mother some day, sound in wind and limb; but if you begin like that, the trip’s over, and we shall have to start back for England in less than a week—at least, I shall, with my luggage increased by a case containing broken boy.”

There was a loud burst of hearty laughter from the manly-looking lad addressed, as he stood, with his hands clinging and his head twisted round, to look back: for he had spread-eagled himself against a nearly perpendicular scarp of rock which he had begun to climb, so as to reach a patch of wild rhododendrons.

There was another personage present, in the shape of a sturdy, muscular-looking man, whose swarthy face was sheltered by a wide-brimmed soft felt hat, very much turned up at the sides, and in whose broad band was stuck a tuft of the pale grey, starry-looking, downy plant known as the Edelweiss. His jacket was of dark, exceedingly threadbare velvet; breeches of the same; and he wore gaiters and heavily nailed lace-up boots; his whole aspect having evoked the remarks, when he presented himself at the door of the chalet:

“I say, Mr Dale, look here! Where is his organ and his monkey? This chap has been asking for you—for Herr Richard Dale, of London.”

“Yes, I sent for him. It is the man I am anxious to engage for our guide.”

For Melchior Staffeln certainly did look a good deal like one of the “musicians” who infest London streets with “kists o’ whustles,” as the Scottish gentleman dubbed them—or much noisier but less penetrating instruments on wheels.

He was now standing wearing a kind of baldric across his chest, in the shape of a coil of new soft rope, from which he rarely parted, whatever the journey he was about to make, and leaning on what, at first sight, seemed to be a stout walking-stick with a crutch handle, but a second glance revealed as an ice-axe, with, a strong spike at one end, and a head of sharp-edged and finely pointed steel, which Saxe said made it look like a young pick-axe.

This individual had wrinkled his face up so much that his eyes were nearly closed, and his shoulders were shaking as he leaned upon the ice-axe, and indulged in a long, hearty, nearly silent laugh.

“Ah! it’s no laughing matter, Melchior,” said the broad-shouldered, bluff, sturdy-looking Englishman. “I don’t want to begin with an accident.”

“No, no,” said the guide, whose English seemed to grow clearer as they became more intimate. “No accidents. It is the Swiss mountain air getting into his young blood. In another week he will bound along the matt, or dash over the green alp like a goat, and in a fortnight be ready to climb a spitz like a chamois.”

“Yes, that’s all very well, my man; but I prefer a steady walk. Look here, Saxe!”

“I’m listening, Mr Dale,” said the lad.

“Then just get it into your brain, if you can, that we are not out on a schoolboy trip, but upon the borders of new, almost untried ground, and we shall soon be mounting places that are either dangerous or safe as you conduct yourself.”

“All right, Mr Dale; I’ll be careful,” said the lad.

“Never fear, herr,” cried the guide; “I will not take you anywhere dangerous—only to places where your fellow-countrymen have well marked the way.”

“Thank you,” was the reply, in so peculiar a tone that the guide looked at the speaker curiously.

“Yes,” continued the latter; “I’ll have a chat with you presently.”

“I am ready, herr,” said the man, rather distantly now. “You have seen my book of testimonials, written by many English and German voyagers who love the mountains!”

“Yes,” said Richard Dale quietly; “and I want this boy to know what he has to do.”

“All right, Mr Dale,” said the lad; “you may trust me.”

“That’s understood, then. You must obey me without question instantly, just as I shall have to obey Melchior Staffeln. I have been out here a dozen times before, and know a great deal; but he has been here all his life, and has inherited the existence of his father and grandfather, both guides. Now, is this understood!”

“Yes, of course, Mr Dale,” said the boy, who had been impatiently throwing stones into the middle of the little river flowing through the valley; “but you are not going to take me for a walk every day, and make us hold one another’s hands?”

“I’m going to make you do exactly what Melchior thinks best,” said his companion, firmly. “And let me tell you, young fellow, there will be times, if you care to go with me, when we shall be very glad to hold each other’s hands: up yonder, for instance, along that shelf, where you can see the sheep.”

He pointed toward where, high up the side of the narrow valley, a group of white-woolled sheep could be seen browsing.

“What, those?” said the lad. “That’s nothing. I thought these mountains and places would be ever so high.”

“Ah! I suppose so,” said Dale dryly. “Why, you young ignoramus—you young puppy, with your eyes not yet half opened—do you know how high those sheep are above where we stand?”

“Those?” said the lad, who had been looking rather contemptuously at everything he had seen since he had been on the Continent. “Perhaps a couple of hundred feet—say three.”

“Three hundred, Saxe? Why, my lad, they are a thousand feet if they are an inch.”

“Two thousand,” said the guide quietly.

“What!” cried the boy. “Then how high is that point just peeping over the hills there, right up the valley?”

He pointed to a dazzling snowy peak which ran up like a roughly shaped, blunted spear head glistening in the morning air.

“Das Dusselhorn,” said the guide. “Hochte spitze? Nein.”

“What is the height, Melchior?”

“How high, herr?—how tall? Eleven thousand English feet.”

“Why it does not look much higher than Saint Paul’s.”

“You must remember that you are amongst the great peaks,” said Dale, “and that it takes time to educate your eyes to the size of everything about you.”

“But it looks as if you could get to the top in an hour,” said Saxe.

“Does it?” said Dale, smiling. “Then what do you say to this?” And he pointed up at the huge mass of rock, streaked with ravines full of snow, which formed one side of the valley in which they stood.

“Lenstock,” said the guide.

“How long would it take us to get up to the top, Melchior?”

“Too late to-day, herr. Start at three o’clock with lanthorn while the schnee-snow is hard. Ten hours to go up, seven to come down.”

Richard Dale looked at his young companion, whose forehead was wrinkled, as he stared up at the huge mass of rock from its lower green alps or pastures, up over the grey lichened stone, to where the streakings of white snow began, and then higher and higher to the region of everlasting ice.

“Well,” he said at last, as he lowered his eyes to the guide and the strong, resolute-looking man beside him, “I—”

A quick change came over him, and with a laughing look he continued quickly:

“Not travellers’ tales, eh?”

“Travellers’ tales?” said the guide slowly.

“He means, are you deceiving him?” said Dale.

The guide shook his head gravely.

“The great mountains are too solemn to speak anything but truth in their shade.”

“Well,” said Saxe slowly, “then it’s the mountains that deceive.”

“Wait a bit, boy, and you’ll soon learn how great they are. It takes time. Now, understand this: I do not want to interfere with your enjoyment; but if we are to carry out my plans, it must be work and not play.”

“Why not both?” said Saxe merrily.

“Because we must husband our strength, so as to always have a little left to use in an emergency. Now, then, we understand each other, do we not?”

“Yes, Mr Dale.”

“Then forward.”

The guide nodded his head good-humouredly; but he did not stir.

“Well?” said the Englishman.

“Let us understand each other,” said the guide quietly. “Those who go up into the mountains must be brothers. Now your life is in danger, and I save you; next my life is in peril, and you save me. A guide is something more than one who goes to show the way.”

“Of course,” said Richard Dale, eyeing the man curiously: “that is why I have chosen you. Friends told me that Melchior Staffeln was a man whom I might trust.”

“I thank them,” said the guide. “And the herr wishes me to be his guide for days and weeks or months, and show him the way up the great mountains as I have shown others?”

“No!” said Dale sharply. “I want you to take me right in among the heights, passes and glaciers where the visitors do not go.”

The guide looked at him fixedly.

“Why? what for?” he said. “You did not tell me this when you came up to the chalet last night, and sent for me.”

“No. I tell you now.”

“Why do you wish to go? There may be danger.”

“I’ll tell you. I want to see the mountains and study them. I would search for metals and specimens of the stones in the higher rocks.”

“Crystals?”

“Yes.”

“Hah!” said the guide. “To see if there is gold and silver and precious stones?”

“Yes.”

“If it is known you will be stopped by the magistrate of the commune.”

“Why? I do not want to rob the country.”

“But the gold—the silver.”

“Let’s find them first, man; and see what the chief magistrate says then. Can you lead me to places where I can find these?”

“Perhaps.”

“Will you?”

The man was silent for a few minutes. Then,—“Will the herr be straightforward and honest to my country, and if he finds such treasures in the mountains, will he go to the magistrates and get leave to work them?”

“Of that you may be sure. Will you come?”

The man was silent and thoughtful again for a minute.

“If the people know, we shall be watched night and day.”

“They must not know.”

“No, they must not know.”

“Then you will come?”

“Yes,” said the man, “I will come.”

“Then, once more, forward,” said Dale. “Saxe, my lad, our search for Nature’s treasures has begun.”

Chapter Two.

An Alpine Valley.

The track for some distance up the valley was so rugged and narrow that the little party had to go in single file; but after a time they came upon a more open part, less encumbered with rock, and, with the lad on ahead, Richard Dale strode up abreast of the guide, and, taking out his case, lit a cigar, and offered one to the Swiss.

The guide shook his head.

“No, thank you, herr,” he said; “I seldom smoke anything but my pipe.”

They went on for a while in silence, the only sound falling upon their ears being the continuous roar of the torrent-like river which rushed down the valley in a narrow chasm far below their feet—one series of thundering cascades, all foam and milky glacier water.

Patches of pine forest, with the trees crowded close together, every stem straight as an arrow, ran for some distance up the sides of the vale; but there was no sign or note of bird. All was solemn and still, save that deep-toned roar.

Saxe stopped suddenly, waited till they came near, and held up his hand.

“What is it?” said Dale.

“Isn’t it wonderful, Mr Dale? Only two days ago in London, and here we are in this wild place! Why, you can’t hear a sound but the water!”

Almost as he spoke he bounded from the spot where he was standing, and ran a few yards in alarm.

For from somewhere unseen and high above, there was a sudden roar, a terrific crash, then a rushing sound, followed by a dead silence of a few seconds, and then the earth seemed to receive a quivering blow, resulting in a boom like that of some monstrous gun, and the noise now ran up the valley, vibrating from side to side, till it died away in a low moan.

The boy looked wildly from one to the other, to see that his uncle was quite unmoved and that the guide was smiling at him.

“Then that was thunder?” he said inquiringly.

“No; a big piece of rock split off and fell,” replied the guide.

“Is there no danger?”

“It would have been dangerous if we had been there.”

“But where is ‘there’?”

“Up yonder,” said the guide, pointing over the pine-wood toward the top of the wall of rock, a perpendicular precipice fully three thousand feet in height. “The rock split off up the mountain somewhere, rushed down, and then fell.”

“Can we see?”

“Oh yes; I could find the place,” said the guide, looking at Dale.

“No, no: we will go on,” said the latter. “It would take us two or three hours. That sort of thing is often going on out here, Saxe.”

“But why did it fall? Is any one blasting rock over there?”

“Yes, Nature: blasting with cold and heat.”

Saxe looked at him inquiringly.

“You’ll soon understand all this, my lad,” said Dale. “The rocks high up the mountains are always crumbling down.”

“Crumbling? I don’t call that crumbling.”

“Call it what you like; but that was a crumb which fell down here, my lad. You see the snow and ice over yonder?”

“Yes.”

“Well, of course that means that there is constant freezing going on there, except when the sun is blazing down at midday.”

“Yes, I understand that,” said Saxe.

“Well, the rock gets its veins charged with water from the melting of the snow in the daytime, and at night it freezes again; the water expands in freezing, and splits the rock away, but it does not slip, because it is kept in position by the ice. By-and-by, on an extra hot day, that ice melts, and, there being nothing to support it, the mass of rock falls, and drives more with it, perhaps, and the whole comes thundering down.”

“I should like to see how big the piece was,” said Saxe; “it must have been close here.”

“No,” said the guide; “perhaps two miles away.”

Dale made a sign, and they went on again.

“Wait a bit, Saxe, and you’ll see plenty of falling rock. I dare say we shall be cannonaded by stones some day.”

“But shall we see an avalanche!”

“It’s a great chance if we see one of the great falls which fill valleys and bury villages; but if you keep your eyes open I dare say we shall see several small ones to-day.”

The lad glanced quickly up, and the meaning of that look was read directly.

“No,” said Dale quietly, “I am not joking, but speaking frankly to one whom I have chosen as my companion in this enterprise. Come, Saxe, you and I must now be more like helpmates—I mean, less of man and boy, more like two men who trust each other.”

“I shall be very glad,” said the boy eagerly.

“Then we start so from this moment. We’ll forget you are only sixteen or seventeen.”

“Nearly seventeen.”

“Yes. For, without being gloomy, we must be serious. As Melchior says, ‘the mountains are solemn in their greatness.’ Look!”

They had just turned the corner of a huge buttress of rock, and Dale pointed up the valley to the wonderful panorama of mountain and glacier which suddenly burst upon their view. Snowy peak rising behind green alps dotted with cattle, and beyond the glittering peak other pyramids and spires of ice with cols and hollows full of unsullied snow, like huge waves suddenly frozen, with their ridges, ripples, and curves preserved.

“It is grand!” cried the boy, gazing excitedly before him at the most wondrous picture that had ever met his eyes.

“Yes,” said Dale; “and it has the advantage that every step we take brings us to something grander. That is only your first peep into Nature’s wilds, some of which are as awful as they are vast. There goes one of the inhabitants.”

For at that moment, soaring high above the valley, a huge bird floated between them and the intensely blue sky.

“An eagle!”

“Yes; the lammergeyer—the Alpine eagle.”

“But what a name!” said Saxe.

“Suitable enough,” said Dale quietly. “We call our little bird of prey a sparrow-hawk. Well, this bird—lammergeyer—is the one which preys on lambs.”

The eagle soared higher and higher till it was well above the perpendicular wall of rock on their left, and then glided onward toward the snow, rapidly passing out of sight; while the trio tramped on, passing a chalet here and another there, with its wooden shingled roof laden with great stones to keep all intact against the terrific winds which at times sweep down the valley from the ice ahead. Now their way lay down by the foaming torrent, half choked with ragged pine trunks, torn out of their birthplaces by tempests, or swept away by downfalls of snow or rock; then they panted up some zigzag, faintly marked, where it was impossible to follow the bed of the stream; and as they climbed higher fresh visions of grandeur opened out before them, though the path was so rugged that much of the view was lost in the attention that had to be given to where they placed their feet. But from time to time a halt was called, a geological hammer produced, and a piece of the rock, that had come bounding down from half a mile above them, was shifted and examined—pure limestone, now granite of some form, or hornblende, while the guide rested upon the head of his axe, and looked on.

“You English are a wonderful people,” he said at last.

“Why?” said Saxe.

“A Frenchman would come up here—no, he would not: this would be too difficult and rough; he would get hot and tired, and pick his way for fear of hurting his shiny boots. But if he did he would seek two or three bright flowers to wear in his coat, he would look at the mountains, and then sit down idle.”

“And the English?” said Saxe.

“Ah, yes, you English! Nothing escapes you, nor the Americans. You are always looking for something to turn into money.”

“Which we are not doing now,” said Dale quietly. “But very few people come up here.”

“Very few, but those who have cows or goats up on the green alps.”

“And you think this is one of the grandest and wildest valleys you know?”

“It is small,” said the guide, “but it is the most solitary, and leads into the wildest parts. See: in a short time we shall reach the glacier, and then always ice, snow, and rock too steep for the snow to stand, and beyond that the eternal silence of the never-ending winter.”

Two hours’ climb more than walk, with the sun coming down with scorching power; but in spite of the labour, no weariness assailing the travellers, for the air seemed to give new life and strength at every breath they drew. But now, in place of the view being more grand, as they climbed higher the valley grew narrow, the scarped rocks on either side towered aloft and shut out the snowy peaks, and at last their path led them amongst a dense forest of pines, through whose summits the wind sighed and the roaring torrent’s sound was diminished to a murmur.

This proved to be a harder climb than any they had yet undertaken, the slope being very steep, and the way encumbered by masses of rock which had fallen from above and become wedged in among the pine trunks.

“Tired, Saxe?” said Dale, after a time.

“I don’t know, sir. That is, my legs are tired, but I’m not so upward. I want to go on.”

“In half an hour we shall be through,” said Melchior; “then there are no more trees—only a green matt, with a chalet and goats and cows.”

“That means milk,” said Saxe eagerly.

“Yes, and bread and cheese,” said Melchior, smiling.

“Then I’m not tired. I’m sure of it now, sir,” said Saxe merrily; and the next half-hour was passed in a steady tramp, the guide leading as surely as if he had passed all his days in that gloomy patch of forest, never hesitating for a moment, but winding in and out to avoid the innumerable blocks which must have lain there before the pines had sprung up and grown for perhaps a hundred years.

Then there was bright daylight ahead, and in a few more strides the last trees were passed, and they came out suddenly in an amphitheatre of bare rocks, almost elliptical, but coming together at the head, and bending away like a comma turned upside down.

At the moment they stepped on to the green stunted pasture, dotted with flowers, the roar of the torrent came up from a gash in the rocks far below, and to right and left, from at least three hundred feet up, the waters of no less than five streams glided softly over the rocks, and fell slowly in silvery foam, to form so many tributaries of the torrent far below.

The effect of those falls was wonderful, and for the first few minutes it seemed as if the water had just awakened at its various sources, and was in no hurry to join the mad, impetuous stream below, so slowly it dropped, turning into spray, which grew more and more misty as it descended, while every now and then a jet as of silver rockets shot over from the top, head and tail being exactly defined, but of course in water instead of sparks.

“Will this do, Saxe?” said Dale, smiling.

“Do! Oh, come on. I want to get close up to those falls.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Tired!” cried Saxe. “What fellow could feel tired in a place like this!”

Chapter Three.

Further Ideas of Magnitude.

The guide had already started off, and for the next half-hour he led them on and upward, gradually ascending a rocky eminence which stood like a vast tower in the middle of the amphitheatre.

Every now and then he stopped to hold out his ice-axe handle to help Saxe; but the latter disdained all aid, and contented himself with planting his feet in the same spots as the guide, till all at once the man stopped.

It was the top of the eminence; and as Saxe reached Melchior’s side he paused there, breathless with exertion and wonder, gazing now along the curved part of the comma, which had been hidden for the last hour.

Right and left were the silvery veil-like cascades: down below them some five hundred feet the little river roared and boomed, and the junction of the silvery water of the falls with the grey milky, churned-up foam of the torrent was plainly seen in two cases. But the sight which enchained Saxe’s attention was the head of the valley up which they had toiled, filled by what at the first glance seemed to be a huge cascade descending and flowing along the ravine before him, but which soon resolved itself into the first glacier—a wonderfully beautiful frozen river, rugged, wild and vast, but singularly free from the fallen stones and earth which usually rob these wonders of their beauty, and looking now in the bright sunshine dazzling in its purity of white, shaded by rift, crack and hollow, where the compressed snow was of the most delicate sapphire tint.

“Is that a glacier?” said Saxe, after gazing at it for a few minutes.

“Yes, lad, that’s a glacier, and a better example than one generally sees, because it is so particularly clean. Glaciers are generally pretty old and dirty-looking in the lower parts.”

The guide rested upon his ice-axe, with his eyes half-closed, apparently watching the effect the glacier had upon the visitors; Dale gazed at it contemplatively, as if it were the wrinkled face of an old friend; and Saxe stared wonderingly, for it was so different to anything he had pictured in his own mind.

“Well, what do you think of it?” said Dale, at last.

“Don’t quite know, sir,” said Saxe, sitting down, drawing up his knees to rest his chin, and throwing his arms about his legs. “It wants looking at. But I’m beginning to understand now. That’s the upper part of the river which runs down the valley, only up here it is always frozen. Seems rum, though, for the sun’s regularly blistering my neck.”

“You have something of the idea, but you are not quite right, Saxe,” replied Dale. “That is the upper part of the river, and yet it is not, because it is a distinct river. You speak of it as if the river up here had become frozen. Now, it is frozen because it has never been otherwise.”

“Must have been water once, or else it couldn’t have run down that narrow valley.”

“It has never been anything but ice, Saxe,” said Dale, smiling; “and yet it has run down the valley like that.”

“Ice can’t flow, because it is solid,” said Saxe dogmatically.

“Ice can flow, because it is elastic as well as solid.”

“Mr Dale!”

“Proof, boy. Haven’t you seen it bend when thin, and people have been on it skating?”

“Oh! ah! I’d forgotten that.”

“Well, this ice is sufficiently elastic to flow very slowly, forced down by its own weight and that of the hundreds of thousands of tons behind.”

“Oh, I say, Mr Dale—gently!” cried Saxe.

“Well, then, millions of tons, boy. I am not exaggerating. You do not understand the vastness of these places. That glacier you are looking at is only one of the outlets of a huge reservoir of ice and snow, extending up there in the mountains for miles. It is forced down, as you see, bending into the irregularities of the valley where they are not too great; but when the depths are extensive the ice cracks right across.”

“With a noise like a gun, sometimes,” interpolated the guide, who was listening intently.

“And I know, like that,” cried Saxe, pointing to a deep-looking jagged rift, extending right across the ice-torrent: “that makes a crevasse.”

“Quite correct,” said Dale.

“But stop a moment,” cried Saxe: “this is all solid-looking blue ice. It’s snow that falls on the tops of the mountains.”

“Yes; snow at a certain height, while lower that snow becomes rain.”

“Well, then, this valley we are looking at ought to be snow, not ice.”

“Snow is ice in the form of light flocculent crystals, is it not? Why, at home, if you take up moist snow and press it hard in your hands, you can almost turn it into ice. If you placed it in a press, and applied much force, it would become perfectly clear ice. Well, there’s pressure enough here to turn it into ice; and besides, the snow is always melting in the hot sun, and then freezing again at night.”

“Yes, I see!” cried Saxe; “but it does seem queer. Why, we’ve got summer here, with flowers and bees and butterflies, and if we go down to that glacier, I suppose we can step on to winter.”

“Yes, my lad; and if we like to climb a little higher up the ice, we can place ourselves in such severe winter that we should be frozen to death.”

“Then we will not go,” said Saxe, laughing. “You told me one day— No, you didn’t, it was in a story I read, ‘man is best as he is.’ But I say, Mr Dale, how about the river? doesn’t it come from the glacier?”

“Yes, of course. These vast glaciers are the sources of the great Swiss and Italian rivers. The Rhine and the Rhone both begin up in the mountains here, and the Aar and the Reuss start pretty close to them. When we get down here you will see how this stream runs from a little ice-cave.”

“But what makes it so dirty?”

“My good fellow, we have come to climb, and my name is not Barlow. You must read and search out these things. You know how that stone or mass fell with a roar lower down?”

“Not likely to forget it, sir,” replied Saxe, with a laugh.

“Well, the stones are always falling from the bare sides of the gorge; they drop on to the glacier, and in course of time are washed by the melting ice into the crevasses and down to the bare rock beneath the glacier. There they glide down, with its weight upon them, right over the rock, and the surface is worn off from the fallen stone and the bed rock in a thin paste, which is washed away by the glacier. Then, as it descends, it of course discolours the water.”

“Shall we go down to the toe of the glacier!” said the guide.

“Yes; come along.”

“Can we trust the young herr to descend?”

Dale leaned forward to gaze down the rugged slope, which was excessively steep, but broken up into rift and gully, offering plenty of foot and hand-hold.

“What do you think, Saxe?” he said. “Can you manage to get down there?”

“Get down there?” said the lad contemptuously; “why, I’d race you to the bottom.”

“No doubt, and be down first,” said Dale quietly; “but I should be ready to go on, and you would want carrying to the nearest chalet to wait for a surgeon.”

“What, after getting down that bit of a place?”

“You stupid fellow,” said Dale testily; “that bit of a place is a precipice of five hundred feet. How am I to impress upon you that everything here is far bigger than you think? Look here,” he continued, pointing: “do you see that cow yonder, on that bit of green slope beside those overhanging rocks?”

“No; I can see a little dog by a heap of stones.”

“That will do for an example,” said Dale. “Here, Melchior, is not that a cow just across the stream there?”

“Wait a moment,” cried Saxe eagerly. “I say it’s a little dog. Who’s right?”

“You are both wrong,” said the guide, smiling. “There is a man here has a chalet behind the pines. He comes up the valley with his cattle for the summer, when the snow is gone.”

“Is there snow here in winter, then?” said Saxe.

“The valley is nearly full in winter. No one can come up here.”

“But that isn’t a cow,” cried Saxe, pointing.

“No,” said the guide, smiling; “it is Simon Andregg’s big bull.”

“Well!” cried Saxe, shading his eyes and staring down at the animal, which looked small enough to be a dog.

“You don’t believe him?” said Dale, laughing.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Saxe; “I suppose I do. But I was thinking that he might have made a mistake. Shall I go first?”

“No, herr; I am the guide,” said Melchior quietly; and he began the descent pretty rapidly, but stopped at the foot of each more difficult part to look up and wait for the others. Sometimes he drove the sharp end of his ice-axe into the earth or some crevice, and held it there to act as a step for the others to descend; and at other times he pressed himself against the rock and offered his shoulders as resting-places for their feet, constantly on the watch to lessen the difficulties and guard against dangers in a place where a slip of a few feet might have resulted in the unfortunate person who fell rolling lower with increasing impetus, and the slip developing into a terrible accident.

“It is farther than I thought,” said Saxe, as they reached the bottom of the steep bluff from which they had viewed the glacier; and he stepped back a few yards to look up. “The places really are so much bigger than they look. Why, I say, Mr Dale, the glacier seems quite high up from here, and ever so much farther off.”

“And it will look bigger still when we reach the cave where the river comes out.”

“So!” said Melchior quietly; and he went on, now down the stony slope of the valley, to reach the river bed near its source, with the sides of the thal seeming to grow steeper and higher, and one of the waterfalls they were near infinitely more beautiful, for they had now reached the point necessary for seeing the lovely iris which spanned the cascade, turning its seething spray into a segment of an arch of the most vivid colours, at which the lad seemed disposed to gaze for an indefinite time.

“Vorwarts,” said the guide quietly; and they obeyed, following his lead till they reached the spot where the clear waters of the fall glided into the dingy stream, and then followed the latter up and up for quite half an hour before Saxe stopped short, and took off his straw hat to wipe his steaming forehead, as he gazed up at the end of the glacier; he was now so low down that the surface was invisible, and facing him there was a curve rising up and up, looking like a blunted set of natural steps.

“Well?” said Dale, inquiringly.

“I can’t make it out,” said Saxe, rather breathlessly. “It seems as if that thing were playing games with us, and growing bigger and shrinking away farther at every step one takes.”

“Yes,” said Dale, “it is giving you a lesson that you will not easily forget.”

“But it looked quite small when we were up there,” cried Saxe, nodding toward the tower-like bluff they had climbed, again at the top of the glacier.

“Yes, and now it looks quite big, Saxe; and when you have been on it and have walked a few miles upon its surface here and there—”

“Miles?”

“Yes, my boy, miles. Then you will begin to grasp how big all this is, and what vast deserts of ice and snow there are about us in the mountains. But come along; we have not much farther to go to reach the foot.”

But it took them quite a quarter of an hour over rounded, scratched and polished masses of rock which were in places cut into grooves, and to all this Dale drew attention.

“Do you see what it means?” he said.

“No,” said Saxe, “only that it’s very bad walking, now it’s so steep.”

“But don’t you see that—?”

“Yes, I do,” cried Saxe, interrupting him; “you mean that this has been all rubbed smooth by the ice and stones grinding over it; but how could it?—the ice couldn’t go up hill.”

“No, it comes down.”

“Then—was it once as far as here?”

“Ever so much farther when I was a boy,” said the guide. “It has been shrinking for years. Mind, herr; it is very slippery here. Let me help you.”

He hooked his ice-axe into a crevice, and held out his hand, by whose help Saxe mounted beside him, and here descending close to the water they stepped from stone to stone, with the ice towering more and more above their heads, till they were close up, and even below it, for they had entered a low, flat arch, which just admitted them standing upright, and after a few steps into what Saxe called a blue gloom, they stood gazing into the azure depths of the cavern, which grew darker till they were purple and then utterly black. Then they listened to the gurgle and babble of the tiny river, as it came rushing and dashing over the rock in many an eddy and swirl, while from far away up in the darkness there were mysterious whisperings and musical echoes that were strange to hear.

“Like to go in any farther, Saxe?” said Dale.

“Yes, much—very much,” said the lad, in a low voice, “just because I don’t want to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t exactly explain it, because the place makes me feel nervous and a little shrinking, but I want to try and get over it.”

“Better not stay any longer, herr,” said the guide; “you are hot with walking, and the place is damp and cold.”

“Yes, it would be wiser to go out in the sunshine again. I should like to explore this, though, with a lantern and candles.”

“Whenever the herr likes,” said the guide quietly. And they passed out again, the icy arch above them looking exquisitely beautiful with its blue tints, some of which were of the delicious brilliancy to be seen in some of our precious stones.

It was a wonderful change from the cool gloom of the cavern to the glaring sunshine outside, where the heat was reflected from the ice and glistening rocks; and now, striking up to the right, Melchior made for where the ice ended and the steep slope-up of the valley side began.

Here with a little difficulty they mounted—sometimes the rock growing too steep and the ice appearing the easier path, then the reverse, till at last they stood well up on the surface of the frozen river and began its toilsome ascent.

“Now you’ll find the advantage of your big-nailed boots, Saxe,” said his leader merrily. “Go cautiously, my lad; we mustn’t spoil our explorations by getting sprained ankles.”

The warning was necessary, for the ice surface was broken up into ruts, hollows, folds, and crags that required great caution, and proved to be laborious in the extreme to surmount.

“Is there much more of this rough stuff?” said Saxe, after half an hour’s climbing.

The guide smiled.

“The ice gets bigger and wilder higher up,” he replied. “There are smooth patches, but it is broken up into crags and seracs.”

This was another surprise to Saxe, to whom the surface of the glacier, when seen from above on the bluff, had looked fairly smooth—just, in fact, one great winding mass of ice flowing down in a curve to the foot. He was not prepared for the chaos of worn, tumbled and crushed-up masses, among which the guide led the way. Some parts that were smoother were worn and channelled by the running water, which rushed in all directions, mostly off the roughly curved centre to the sides, where it made its way to the river beneath.

It was quite a wonderland to the boy fresh from town, entering the icy strongholds of nature; for, after ascending a little farther, their way was barred by jagged and pinnacled masses heaped together in the wildest confusion, many of the fragments being thirty, even forty feet high.

“Have we got to climb those?” said Saxe, in dismay.

The guide shook his head.

“No, herr: it would be madness to try. Some of them would give way at the least touch. Stand back a little, and I’ll show you why it is dangerous to climb among the seracs.”

He stepped aside, and, using his axe, deftly chipped off a piece of ice from a block—a fragment about as large as an ordinary paving-stone.

“Hold my axe, sir,” he said; and on Saxe taking it, the man picked up the block he had chipped off, walked a little way from them, and, after looking about a little, signed to them to watch, as he hurled the lump from him, after raising it above his head. As he threw it, he ran back toward them, and the piece fell with a crash between two spires which projected from the icy barrier.

There was a crash, and then the effect was startling. Both the spires, whose bases must have been worn nearly through by the action of sun and water, came down with a roar, bringing other fragments with them, and leaving more looking as if they were tottering to their fall.

Then up rose what seemed to be a cloud of diamond dust, glittering in the bright sunshine, a faint echo or two came from high up the rocky face of the valley, and then all was silent once more.

“You see?” said Melchior. “Why, often a touch of a hand, or even a shout, will bring them tumbling down. Always keep away from the seracs.”

He led them now at a safe distance across the glacier to the left, till a wide opening presented itself, through which they passed on to comparatively smooth ice; but even this was all piled together, wedged in blocks, which made the party seem, as Saxe said, like so many ants walking about in a barrel of loaf sugar.

Then there was a smoother stretch, all longitudinal furrows, up which they passed fairly well—that is to say, with only a few falls—till they went round a curve; and there they paused, breathless and wondering.

“Why, that was only a peep down below,” cried Saxe. “Look, Mr Dale! look!”

He had cause to exclaim, for from where they stood they had an opening before them right up a side valley running off from the glacier at a sharp angle. This, too, was filled by a glacier, a tributary of the one they were upon, and with the sides of the minor valley covered with snow wherever the slope was sufficient to hold it. Beyond rose peak after peak, flashing pure and white—higher and higher; and even the hollows between them filled with soft-looking pillows and cushions of dazzling snow.

“Those are the mountains you told me about, then?” cried Saxe.

“Some of the outposts, lad. There are others far greater, miles behind those; and you are now having your first genuine look into wonderland.”

“I never thought it was like this.”

“No one can imagine how wonderful the mountains are,” said the guide solemnly. “I looked up at them as a little child, and I have been up amongst them from a boy, while I am now thirty-five; and yet they are always changing and ever new. Sometimes they are all light and sunshine, though full of hidden dangers. Sometimes they are wild and black and angry, when the wind shrieks and the lightning flashes about their shattered heads, and the thunders roar. Yes, young herr, you never thought it was half so wonderful as this. Shall we go on?”

“I was thinking,” said Dale. “I only meant to come a little way to-day, and let my companion have a glimpse of what is before him; so we will not go much farther, as it is so far back to the chalet.”

“If the herr does not mind simple fare and a bed of clean hay, we could sleep at Andregg’s to-night, and be ready for a start in the morning early.”

“The very thing,” said Dale. “How long will it take us to get from here to Andregg’s?”

“An hour,” said the guide; “so we have several good hours before us to go on up the glacier, or to cross over the valley ridge, and come back down the next.”

“Can we go up the glacier for another mile,” said Dale, “and then cross?”

“Easily.”

“Then we will do that.”

The ascent of the glacier-filled valley was continued, and they toiled on. A mile on level ground would have meant a sharp quarter of an hour’s walk; here it meant a slow climb, slipping and floundering over ice, splashing through tiny rivulets that veined the more level parts, and the avoidance of transverse cracks extending for a few yards. Sometimes they had to make for the left, sometimes the right bank of the frozen river; and at last, as they were standing waiting while the guide made his observations as to the best way of avoiding some obstacle in their front, there was a sharp, clear crack.

“What’s that?” said Saxe quickly.

“Stand back!” cried the guide. “No! quick—to me!”

They stepped forward to his side; and as, in obedience to a sign, they turned, there was a peculiarly harsh, rending noise, a singing as of escaping air, and to their astonishment, just where they had been standing the ice began to open in a curious, wavy, zigzag line, gradually extending to right and left. At first it was a faint crack, not much more than large enough to admit a knife-blade; but as they watched it slowly opened, till it was an inch—a foot—across, and then all sound ceased, and they could look down for a short distance before the sides came together, the whole forming a long wedge-shaped hollow.

“The opening of a crevasse,” said the guide gravely. “It will go on growing bigger, till it will be dangerous.”

“You are lucky, Saxe,” said Dale. “You have had a fall of rock, seen an ice-cave and the birth of a big river, heard seracs fall, and now watched the opening of a crevasse. We must have that avalanche before we go back.”

“When we get up on the ridge we shall see the Bluthenhorn,” said Melchior; “the afternoon sun will be full on the high slopes, and we shall hear some of the ice-fall. Hark!”

He held up his hand, and they stood listening to a faintly booming sound, evidently at a great distance before them.

“Was that one?”

“Yes; but right over among the mountains, herr. It was a great fall, though, or we should not have heard it here.”

He plodded steadily on, and Saxe noted that he kept his eyes down and seemed to make a business of every step, measuring exactly where he should plant it, and keeping hold, as it were, with his other foot till he was sure that his new step was safe. Not that this took long, but it appeared to be all carefully studied, and the boy learned that such caution must be the result of experience and mean safety in his arduous climbing.

The glacier wound in serpentine fashion along the valley, growing wilder and grander as they ascended. There were masses of piled-up ice, and crevasses into whose blue depths they peered as they listened to the hollow echoing sounds of running water. Some of these were stepped over in an ordinary stride, some had to be jumped; and, though the distance was short, Saxe felt a curious shrinking sensation as he leaped across a four or five feet rift, whose sides were clear blue ice, going right down to what would in all probability mean death to one who fell. Then on again, till it seemed to the lad that they must have journeyed that one mile upward several times over; and, at last, before them there was snow filling up all the irregularities, and offering them a soft smooth path.

It was not snow, though, such as he had seen in England, for it looked more like a thick layer of softened hailstones, which he could scoop up and let fall separately, or scatter at large to glisten in the sun, while upon trying it the particles crackled and crushed under their feet, but felt pretty firm.

“What are you stopping for?” said Dale.

“I don’t quite like the look of the snow on beyond this first old part,” said the guide. “You have no alpenstock or ice-axe either.”

“Shall we give up going any farther to-day?” said Dale.

“No, herr: because I want to get round that piece of rock which runs out from the side. Beyond that there is a couloir running right up to the ridge, and it will be the easiest place for us to mount.”

As he spoke he took the coil of rope from across his chest, and began to unfasten the end.

“Is that necessary?” asked Dale; while Saxe looked wonderingly on.

“Who knows, herr? It is the duty of a guide to take care his people run no risks. I want to be a good guide to mine.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Saxe.

“Rope ourselves together in case the snow covers a crevasse.”

“But if one goes through, he’ll pull down the others,” cried Saxe. “Is that wise?”

“He will not pull down the others,” said Dale, “for they will pull him out.”

Melchior said nothing, but slowly unfastened his rope as they stood there with their feet in the depth of a rigid winter and their heads in the height of summer. When he had it ready, hanging in loops on his left arm, he held out one end to his companions with a smile.

“Alpen rope. Good. Best,” he said. “English make,” and he pulled open one end, to show them a red strand running through it. “Now!”

He fastened one end by a peculiar knot round Saxe’s waist, arranging it so that it should not slip and tighten, whatever stress was given. Then, bidding the lad walk away till told to stop, he deliberately counted over a certain number of rings.

“Stop! Keep the rope out of the snow.”

Then, with Dale and Saxe holding the rope taut, the middle was attached by similar knots to Dale’s waist, and Melchior walked on, and on reaching his end secured the rope to himself.

“Keep it nearly tight,” he said, “holding the rope in your right hand. If any one goes wrong in the snow, the others are to stand firm and hang back, so as to hold him firmly. Keep to the steps of the man before you as much as you can. Now, then. Vorwarts!”

He started off now through the snow, with Dale and Saxe following.

“Been better if you had placed him in the middle, wouldn’t it, Melchior?” said Dale.

“Yes, herr, I was thinking so. Shall I alter it?”

“No: let’s go on as we are this time. Forward again!” And they went on over the dazzling untrodden surface.

Chapter Four.

On the Rope.

“I say,” cried Saxe, after they had gone on crunching through the snow, which was soft and melting fast.

“Yes: what is it?”

“Don’t you feel as if we were horses haltered together for market?”

“I might answer, sir— Don’t you feel like a donkey being led?”

“No. Why?”

“Because you ask such an absurd, childish question, and that at a serious time.”

Saxe was silent.

“Mr Dale needn’t be so gruff,” he said to himself, as he tramped on, looking up at the rocky sides of the valley, which grew more and more snow-clad as they went on, and giving himself greater trouble by missing the footsteps of his leaders. Once he nearly stumbled and fell, giving a jerk to the rope; but he recovered himself directly, and tramped on in silence, finding the going so arduous that he began to wish for the time when they would leave the glacier and take to the rocks.

But he could not keep silence long.

“Shall we have to go back along the mountain?” he said. “Or will there be some other track?”

“I expect we shall cross the ridge into a similar valley to this, and go down another glacier; but— Ah! Hold tight!”

He threw himself backward, tightening the rope, and as soon as he could get over his surprise at the suddenness of the accident, Saxe followed his companion’s example. For all at once Melchior disappeared, passing through the snow, and a hollow, echoing, rushing noise fell upon their ears.

“Haul away, gentlemen!” cried the guide’s voice; and as they dragged at the rope, they saw his arms appear with the ice-axe, which was struck down into the snow, and directly after the man climbed out, rose from his hands and knees, and shook the snow off his clothes.

“We wanted the rope, you see,” he said quietly. “I ought to have known by the snow that this part was dangerous. No harm done, gentlemen. Let’s strike off for the side.”

“But you went through,” said Saxe excitedly. “Was it a crevasse?”

“Yes, of course,” said the guide, smiling.

“Was it deep?”

“Deep? Oh yes! Would you like to look?”

Saxe nodded, and the guide drew back for him to pass, but took hold of the rope and held it tightly.

“Go on,” he said encouragingly. “I have you fast.”

“But how near can I go?” said Saxe, hesitating.

“Nearly to where I broke through the snow crust. You will see.”

Saxe went on cautiously, still seeing nothing till he was close upon the hole, which was a fairly wide opening, a quantity of half-frozen snow having given way as the guide’s weight rested upon it, and dropped into the black-looking rift, which was lightly bridged over on either side by the snow.

“Lean over if you like, and hang on by the rope,” said Melchior, “if you want to look down.”

Saxe could not say he did not want to look down, for there was a strange fascination about the place which seemed to draw him. But he resisted, and after a quick glance at the thick snow which arched over the crevasse, he drew back; and Melchior led on again, striking the shaft of his ice-axe handle down through the crust before him at every step, and divining, by long practice and the colour of the snow, the direction of the crevasse so well, that he only once diverged from the edge sufficiently for the handle to go right down.

“We can cross here,” he said at last.

“Are you sure?” said Dale.

The guide smiled, and stamped heavily right across.

“We are beyond the end of the crevasse,” he said; and once more they went on upward.

“These cracks make the glacier very dangerous,” observed Dale, after a few minutes.

“Not with a rope and care,” said Melchior, as he trudged on, shouting his words and not turning his head. “But what will you? See how much easier it is. It would take us hours longer to keep to the rocks. There is a crevasse here: walk lightly—just in my steps.”

They followed him carefully, without realising when they were passing over the opening, the difference in the appearance of the snow being only plain to the guide; and then onward again till the place was opposite to them where they were to leave the ice river and climb to the rocks.

“One moment,” said Dale: “let’s take one look round before we leave this part. Look, Saxe! the view is magnificent.”

“Yes; and you can see better from here,” cried the boy enthusiastically, as he stepped forward a few yards.

“Ah! not that way!” cried Melchior.

The warning came too late, for Saxe dropped through suddenly, tightening the rope with a jerk which threw Dale forward upon his face, and drew him a little way on toward the crevasse, whose slight covering of snow had given way.

But Melchior threw himself back, and stopped farther progress, as Saxe’s voice came up from below in a smothered way—

“Ahoy! Help! help!”

“Get to your feet,” cried Melchior to Dale; “I’ll keep the rope tight.”

“Yes,” cried Dale, scrambling up; “now, quick!—both together, to draw him out.”

“Draw him out? No,” said the guide quietly. “Now plant your feet firmly, and hold him till I come to your side.”

Dale obeyed at once, and shouting to Saxe that help was coming, he stood fast, waiting for the guide.

Meanwhile, Saxe, who had felt the snow suddenly drop from beneath him, and had been brought up breathlessly with a sudden jerk, was swinging slowly to and fro, clinging with both hands to the rope, and trying vainly to get a rest for his feet on the smooth wall of ice, over which his toes glided whenever he could catch it; but this was not often, for the ice receded, and in consequence he hung so clear, that the line turned with him, and he was at times with his back to the side from which the rope was strained, gazing at the dimly-seen opposite wall, some six or seven feet away. Above was the over-arching snow, which looked fragile in the extreme.

Far below him as he fell he heard the snow and ice he had broken away go hissing and whispering down for what seemed long after he had dropped; and this gave him some idea of the terrible depth of the ice crack, and a cold chill, that was not caused by the icy coldness of the place, ran through him, as he wondered whether the rope, which now looked thin and worn, would hold. Then he thought that it might possibly cut against the sharp edge, and after a sharp glance upward, to see nothing but the blue sky, he could not keep from looking down into the black depths and listening to the faint musical gurgle of running water.

He shuddered as he slowly turned, and then strained his ears to try and make out what his companion and the guide were doing. But he could hear nothing for some minutes. Then there was a vibration of the rope, and a slight jerking sensation, and to his horror he found that he was being lowered down.

Saxe was as brave as most boys of his years, but this was too much for him. It struck him at first that he was being lowered; but the next moment it seemed to be so much without reason that he jumped to the conclusion that the rope was slowly unravelling and coming to pieces.

An absurd notion, but in the supreme moments of great danger people sometimes think wild things.

He was just in the agony of this imagination, when the small patch of light twenty feet above him was darkened, and he saw the head and shoulders of Melchior, as the man, trusting to the strain upon the rope maintained by Dale, leaned forward.

“Can you help yourself at all?” he said quietly.

“No, no!” cried Saxe hoarsely.

“Be cool, my lad,” said Melchior. “I shall drive the head of my axe into the ice, and leave the handle so that you can grasp it when you are drawn up.”

Saxe made no reply, but he heard a dull sound, and directly after the rope began to move, and he knew by the jerks that it was being hauled in hand-over-hand by the guide.

A minute later, and the lad’s head was level with the snow, and he saw the handle of the ice-axe, which he grasped. But it was almost needless, for Melchior caught him by the portion of the rope which was round his chest, and by a quick exercise of his great strength raised him right out of the crevasse, to stand trembling there, as Dale now ran up and grasped his hand.

“Saxe, my boy! What an escape!”

“Oh no,” said the guide quickly. “It was nothing. The rope is good and strong, and all we had to do was to draw him out. It would have been dangerous for one man—he would have died—but we are three, and we help each other; so it is nothing.”

The two travellers exchanged glances, wondering at the man’s coolness; but they were given no time to think, for Melchior quickly examined the knots of the rope which secured it about Saxe’s chest, and strode on again, so that they were obliged to follow.

A few minutes later they had reached the rocky side of the glacier valley, and a stiff ascent was before them. Here they found more than ever the value of their guide, for his climbing powers seemed almost marvellous, while almost by instinct he selected the easiest route.

But the easiest was very hard, and every now and then he threw himself back against the rock in difficult places, planted his feet firmly wide apart, and steadily hauled upon the rope, making the ascent of the others much more facile than it would have been.

This was repeated again and again till they had reached the top of the ridge, which had seemed the summit from below on the ice; but here a fresh slope met their eyes, and Melchior made straight for a rift which ran up into the mountain, and, being full of snow, looked at a distance like a waterfall.

“We will go up this couloir,” he said; “it will be the best, and it will give the young herr his first lesson in climbing snow.”

“But we have been climbing snow,” said Saxe, whose trepidation had now passed off, and who was feeling once more himself.

“Walking upon it,” said the guide, smiling; “not climbing.”

“Rather a steep bit, isn’t it, Melchior?” said Dale, looking upward.

“Yes, it is steep; but we can do it, and if we slip it will only be a glissade down here again. The rocks are harder to climb, and a slip there would be bad; besides, the stones fall here sometimes rather thickly.”

“But they’ll be worse down that couloir,” said Dale.

“As bad—not worse, herr; but I will go which way you like.”

“Go the best way,” said Dale quietly.

Melchior nodded, and strode on at once for the foot of the narrow rift, which looked like a gully or shoot, down which the snow fell from above.

“Use my steps,” he said quietly; and, with the rope still attached, he began to ascend, kicking his feet into the soft snow as he went on, and sending it flying and rushing down, sparkling in the sunshine, while the others followed his zigzag track with care. There were times when the foothold gave way, but there was no element of danger in the ascent, which did not prove to be so steep as it had looked before it was attacked. But the ascent was long, and the couloir curved round as they climbed higher, displaying a fresh length of ascent invisible from below.

As they turned the corner Melchior paused for them to look about them, and upward toward where the gully ended in a large field of snow, above and beyond which was steeply scarped mountain, rising higher and higher toward a distant snowy peak.

“But we are not going right up that mountain, are we?” cried Saxe, panting and breathless.

“Not to-day,” replied the guide. “No: up to the snow yonder, and along its edge for a little way, and then we descend on the other side, where it will be all downward to Andregg’s chalet. Hah! Down close! Quick!”

He set the example, flinging himself upon his face and extending his hands above his head, as a whizzing sound was heard; then a dull thud or two and directly after there was a crash on the rocky side of the couloir a few feet above their heads, followed by a shower of slaty fragments which fell upon them, while a great fragment, which had become detached far above, glanced off, struck the other side of the gully, and then went downward, ploughing up the snow.

“Take care!” again cried the guide. “No,” he said directly after, “it is only a few bits.”

The few consisted of what might easily have been a cartload of snow, which passed them with a rush, fortunately on the opposite side of the gully.

“I say, Mr Dale,” said Saxe, rather nervously, “if that piece of slate had hit either of us—”

“Hah!” ejaculated Dale, drawing in his breath with a hiss, “if it had hit us—”

They neither of them finished their sentence; and just then Melchior started once more, lessening the difficulty of the ascent by zigzagging the way.

Snow was dislodged, and went gliding down the gully, and for a moment a great patch began to slide, taking Dale with it, but a few rapid leaps carried him beyond it; and tightening the rope as soon as he had reached a firm place, Saxe was able to pick his way after the snow had gone by him with a rush, but only to stop a little lower down.

Another climb of about a quarter of an hour’s duration brought them to the edge of the field of snow, which Melchior examined pretty carefully, and ended by rejecting in favour of a rugged ridge of rocks, which they had hardly reached when there was a quick roar like thunder, and the guide cried sharply—

“Look!”

He pointed upward toward the snow peaks, which seemed to be a couple of miles away; and as they followed the direction of his pointing hand, toward quite a chaos of rock and ice to their left, and about half-way to the summit, they looked in vain, till Dale cried—

“There it is!”

“Yes: what?” cried Saxe eagerly. “Oh, I see: that little waterfall!”

For far away there was the semblance of a cascade, pouring over the edge of a black rock, and falling what seemed to be a hundred feet into a hollow, glittering brilliantly the while in the sun.

They watched it for about five minutes; and then, to Saxe’s surprise, the fall ceased, but the deep rushing noise, as of water, was still heard, and suddenly the torrent seemed to gush out below, to the left, and go on again fiercer than ever, but once more to disappear and reappear again and again, till it made one bold leap into a hollow, which apparently communicated with the glacier they had left.

“Hah!” ejaculated Saxe, “it was very beautiful, but— Why, that must have been snow! Was that an avalanche?”

“Yes; didn’t you understand? That is one of the ice-falls that are always coming down from above.”

“I didn’t take it,” said Saxe. “Well, it was very pretty, but not much of it. I should like to see a big one.”

Dale looked at Melchior, and smiled.

“He does not grasp the size of things yet,” he said. “Why, Saxe, my lad, you heard the clap like thunder when the fall first took place?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then don’t you grasp that what looked like a cascade tumbling down was hundreds of tons of hard ice and snow in large fragments? Hark! there goes another.”

There was a deeper-toned roar now, and they stood looking up once more, with Saxe troubled by a feeling of awe, as the noise came rumbling and echoing to where they stood.

“That must have been a huge mass down,” said Dale at last, after they had looked up in vain, expecting some visible token of the avalanche.

“Yes, herr: away over that ridge. The snow falls at this time of the day. We shall not see any of that one. Shall we go on!”

“No, no!” cried Saxe excitedly, “I want to see another one come down. But did you mean there were hundreds of tons in that first one, that looked like water?”

“Oh yes—perhaps much more,” said Dale. “That fall was a couple of miles away.”

“Here, let’s go on, sir,” said Saxe, who seemed to have changed his mind very suddenly. “It all puzzles me. I dare say I’m very stupid, but I can’t understand it. Perhaps I shall be better after a time.”

“It is more than any one can understand, Saxe,” said Dale quietly; “and yet, while it is grand beyond imagination, all the scheme of these mountains, with their ice and snow, is gloriously simple. Yes,” he added, with a nod to Melchior, “go on,” and an arduous climb followed along the ridge of rocks, while the sun was reflected with a painful glare from the snowfield on their left, a gloriously soft curve of perhaps great depth kept from gliding down into the gorge below by the ridge of rocks along which they climbed.

The way was safe enough, save here and there, when Melchior led them along a ledge from which the slope down was so steep as to be almost a precipice. But here he always paused and drew in the rope till those in his charge were close up to him; and on one of these occasions he patted Saxe on the shoulder, for there had been a narrow piece of about fifty feet in length that looked worse at a glance back than in the passing.

“That was good,” he said. “Some grown men who call themselves climbers would have hung back from coming.”

“That?” said Saxe. “Yes, I suppose it is dangerous, but it didn’t seem so then. I didn’t think about it, as you and Mr Dale walked so quietly across.”

“It’s the thinking about it is the danger,” said Dale quietly. “Imagination makes men cowards. But I’m glad you’ve got such a steady head, Saxe.”

“But I haven’t, sir, for I was horribly frightened when I hung at the end of that rope down in the crevasse.”

“You will not be again,” said Melchior coolly, for they were now on a slope where the walking was comparatively easy, and they could keep together. “The first time I slipped into one I, too, was terribly frightened. Now I never think of anything but the rope cutting into my chest and hurting me, and of how soon I can get hold somewhere to ease the strain.”

“What!” cried Saxe, staring at the man’s cool, matter-of-fact way of treating such an accident, “do you mean to say I shall ever get to think nothing of such a thing as that?”

“Oh yes,” said Melchior quietly.

“Oh, well, I don’t think so,” said Saxe. “Oh no. I shall get not to mind walking along precipices, I dare say, but those crevasses—ugh!”

“The young herr will make a fine mountaineer, I am sure,” said Melchior. “I ought to know. Along here,” he added; and, after a few minutes, he stopped at what was quite a jagged rift in the mountain side.

“There is an awkward bit here, herr,” he said, “but it will cut off half an hour’s hard walking.”

“Down there?” said Saxe, after a glance. “Oh, I say!”

“It is an ugly bit, certainly,” said Dale, looking at the guide.

“With a little care it is nothing,” said Melchior. “The herr will go down first. He has only to mind where he plants his feet. When he reaches that ledge he will stop till we join him.”

As Melchior spoke he unfastened the rope from Dale’s breast and placed the end from his own breast there instead; after which he set himself in a good position by the edge.

“Hadn’t we better get the youngster down first?”

“No, herr, you are heavy, and if you slip he can help me to hold you. We can do it easily. Then you will untie yourself, and I can let him down.”

“And what then?” cried Saxe merrily, to conceal a feeling of uneasiness at the awkward descent before him. “Are we to come up again and let you down?”

“The young herr speaks like a gentleman Irlandais who was with me last year. He made John Bulls, his friend said.”

“Irish bulls, Melchior,” said Dale, smiling.

“Ah, yes, the herr is right, they were Irish bulls; but I do not quite know. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” said Dale, preparing to descend the precipitous piece.

“Better keep your face to the rock here, herr. Go on. Take hold here, young friend. That’s it. The rope just touching, and the hands ready to tighten at the slightest slip. Confidence, herr. But I need not speak. You can climb.”

Dale reached the ledge below without a slip, unfastened the end of the rope, and Melchior began to attach it to Saxe.

“But, I say,” cried the latter, “how can you get down?”

“There?” said the guide, with a little laugh. “Oh, that is not hard climbing: I can easily get down there.”

“I wish I could without thinking it was terrible,” said Saxe to himself, as he prepared in turn to descend, for in spite of the confidence given by the rope about his chest, he found himself fancying that if the knot came undone by the jerk he should give it if he slipped from one of those awkward pieces of stone, he would go on falling and bounding from rock to rock till he lay bruised and cut, perhaps killed, at the bottom of the mountain.

“It’s no good to stop thinking about it,” he muttered; and lowering himself down, he began to descend steadily, with the feeling of dread passing off directly he had started; for the excitement of the work, and the energy that he had to bring to bear in lowering himself from ledge to ledge, kept him too busy to think of anything but the task in hand; so that, in what seemed to be an incredibly short space of time, he was standing beside Dale.

Then came a warning cry from Melchior, who threw down his end of the rope, and directly after began to descend with an ease that robbed his task of all aspect of danger. Every movement was so quietly and easily made, there was such an elasticity of muscle and absence of strain, that before the man was half down, both Dale and Saxe were wondering how they could have thought so much of the task, and on Melchior joining them, and after descending a little farther, roping them for other steep bits, they went on easily and well.

And now for about a couple of hours Melchior took them on rapidly down and down and in and out among bluffs and mountain spurs which he seemed to know by heart, though to those with him the place grew more perplexing at every turn. There was a gloomy look, too, now, in the depths of the various gorges, which told of the coming of evening, though the various peaks were blazing with orange and gold, and a refulgent hue overspread the western sky.

“Is it much farther?” said Saxe at last. “I am getting so hungry, I can hardly get one leg before the other.”

“Farther!” said Melchior, smiling. “Do you not see? Up there to the right is the foot of the glacier; there is the hill from which you saw the top, and yonder is the patch of forest. Andregg’s chalet is just below.”

“I am glad!” cried Saxe. “I thought I was hungry, but it’s tired I am. I shall be too weary to eat.”

“Oh no!” said Melchior. “The young herr will eat, and then he will sleep as we sleep here in these mountains, and wake in the morning ready for another day. The herr still wants to hunt for crystals?” he added, glancing at Dale.

“Yes; if you can take me to them,” said the latter eagerly.

“I will try, herr; but they have to be sought in the highest solitudes, on the edge of the precipices, where it is too steep for the snow to stay, and they say that there are spirits and evil demons guarding the caverns where they lie.”

“And do you believe them?” said Saxe sturdily.

“The young herr shall see,” replied the guide. “Ah! there is Andregg. The cows have just been brought home, and here come the goats. I heard the cry in the mountains. We shall have bread and milk and cheese, if we have nothing else. Do I believe that about the demons who guard the crystal caves?” he continued thoughtfully. “Well, the young herr shall see. Hoi! hola, Andregg! I bring you friends!” he shouted to a grey-haired man standing in the evening twilight, which was declining fast, just outside the plain brown pine-wood chalet, with two women and a boy leisurely milking cows and goats.

“The herrs are welcome,” said the man gravely. “It has been fine among the mountains to-day. I was fearing we should have a storm.”

Chapter Five.

Strange Quarters.

Milk, bread, butter and cheese in the rough pine verandah, seated on a homely bench, with the soft pleasant smell of cows from beneath, and the melodious chiming tinkle of many sweet-toned bells—not the wretched tin or iron jangling affairs secured to sheep or kine in England, but tuneful, well-made bells, carefully strapped to the necks of the cattle, and evidently appreciated by the wearers, several of which stood about, gently swaying their heads, blinking their great soft eyes, ruminating, and waiting their turn with the brawny milkmaid, who rose from her crouching position from time to time, taking her one-legged stool with her, fastened on and projecting like a peculiar tail.

The light was dying out fast on the peaks around, and they ceased to flash and glow, to become pale and grey, and then ghastly, cold and strange, as the little party sat enjoying the simple meal and the calm and rest of the peaceful scene. Everything around was so still that there was hardly a murmur in the pines; only the hushed roar of the restless river, but subdued now, for its waters were shrinking fast from the failure of the supply; for the many thousand trickling rivulets of melting snow, born of the hot sunshine of the day, were now being frozen up hard.

The weary feeling that stole over Saxe was very pleasant as he eat there, with his back against the rough pine boards of the chalet, watching the shadows darkening in the valley, and the falls grow less and less distinct, while a conversation, which did not trouble him, went on close by his elbow.

“I think I have pretty well explained what I want, Melchior,” Dale was saying. “I have seen a few specimens of the crystals found up in the mountains, and I am convinced that far finer pieces are to be obtained in the higher parts that have not yet been explored.”

The guide was silent for a few minutes as he sat now smoking his pipe.

“The herr is right,” he said at last. “I have often seen places where, such treasures may be found. But you are a stranger—I am a Swiss. Is it right that I should help you?”

“When I tell you that I am moved by no ideas of greed, but solely as a discoverer, and that, as I have before said, your country would be the richer for my find, you ought to be satisfied.”

“I should be, herr, only that I do not quite like the secrecy of your movements. It is not like anything I have done before, and it troubles me to think that I ought not to tell anybody the object of our excursions.”

“Tell any curious people that we are making ascents because I am studying the mountains. It will be the truth; for, understand me, I am not going alone for this search. I want to find out more concerning the forming of the glaciers, and the gathering of storms on the mountains. There are endless discoveries to be made, and ascents to be attempted. You will show me mountains that have not yet been climbed.”

“I will show the herr all he wishes, and keep his counsel loyally,” said Melchior. “No one shall know anything about our search. Look, herr: the Alpen glow!”

A slight rustling sound beneath the verandah had just taken Saxe’s attention, and he was wondering whether any one was in the low stone cowhouse over which the chalet was built—from the economical ideas of the people, who make one roof do for both places, and give to their cattle an especially warm winter house—when the guide’s words roused him from his drowsy state, and he started up to gaze at the rather rare phenomenon before him.

A short time before the various mountain peaks had stood up, dimly-seen, shadowy grey and strange, the more distant dying out in the gathering gloom. Now it was as if a sudden return of the golden sunset had thrown them up again, glowing with light and colour, but with a softness and delicacy that was beautiful in the extreme.

“All that’s bright must fade,” said Dale, with a sigh. “I wonder what our English friends would say to that, Saxe!”

“What I do,—that it’s lovely. Is it like this every night?”

“No,” replied Melchior, refilling his pipe; “it is only at times. Some say it means storms in the mountains; some that it is to be fine weather.”

“And what do you say, Melchior?” asked Dale.

“I say nothing, herr. What can a man who knows the mountains say, but that this is a place of change? Down here in the valley it has been a soft bright summer day, whilst up yonder in the mountains storm and snow have raged, and the icy winds have frozen men to death. Another day I have left the wind howling and the rain beating and the great black clouds hanging low; and in an hour or two I have climbed up to sunshine, warmth and peace.”

“But you mountaineers know a great deal about the weather and its changes.”

“A little, herr,” said the guide, smiling—“not a great deal. It is beyond us. We know by the clouds and mists high above the mountains when it is safe to go and when to stay; for if we see long-drawn and rugged clouds hanging about the points and trailing down the cols and over each icy grat, we know there is a tempest raging and we do not go. There is not much wisdom in that. It is very simple, and— Look! the young herr is fast asleep. Poor boy!—it has been a tiring day. Shall we go to rest?”

“Yes,” said Dale, laying his hand on Saxe’s shoulder. “Come, boy, rouse up and let’s go to bed.”

“Eh? What? Where? Sliding down and— Did you speak, Mr Dale?” said Saxe, after starting up and babbling excitedly for a moment or two, just fresh from his dreams.

“Wake up! I’m going to bed.”

“Wake up, of course,” said Saxe tetchily. “Mustn’t a—?”

He stopped short, colouring a little; and at that moment he turned sharply, for there was a loud sneeze from below, and directly after a youngish man, with a lowering look and some bits of hay sticking in his hair, came out from the cowhouse and slouched by the front, glancing up with half-shut eyes towards the occupants of the verandah, on his way to a low stone-built shingle-roofed place, from which sundry bleatings told that it was the refuge of the herd of goats.

Saxe was too sleepy to think then, and their host being summoned, he showed them through the chalet into a long low room with a sloping roof and boarded floor, in two corners of which lay a quantity of clean hay and twigs of some dry heathery-looking plant.

“Gute nacht,” he said briefly, and went out, leaving the door open.

“Do we sleep here?” said Saxe, yawning. “No beds no chests of drawers, no washstands, no carpets.”

“No, boy: nothing but clean hay and a roof over our heads,” replied Dale. “Shall you mind?”

“Mind?” said Saxe, plumping himself down in the hay. “Well, it seems so queer. I can’t undress and lie in this stuff: see how it would tickle. It is pretty soft, though, and— Oh! murder!”

“What’s the matter?” cried Dale excitedly: “some insect?”

“No, it’s a jolly old stumpy thistle, like the top of a young pineapple. It did prick.—Yes, it is pretty soft, and it smells nice, and heigh ho hum! how tired I am!”

“You’ll take the other corner, Melchior,” said Dale; “I’ll lie here. There is no occasion to fasten the door, I suppose?”

“Fasten the door!” said the guide, with a quiet laugh. “Oh no. The only intruder likely to come is the wind, and he might open it and bang it, but he will not be abroad to-night. Look!”

“Look! what at?”

The guide pointed to the corner where Saxe had lain down, making a pillow of his arm.

Dale smiled.

“Comfortable, Saxe boy?”

There was no reply. The hay made a pleasant, sweetly scented couch. Saxe was fast asleep.

Chapter Six.

A Try for Gold.

Strange places bring strange dreams, and often some hours of complete oblivion. Saxe began to dream with all his might. Body and Brain had been having the thorough rest which comes to those who have been walking far in the glorious mountain air; but toward morning Brain woke up and began to act on its own account, while Body lay asleep; and when Brain does this without the balance given by Body, its workings are rather wild.

In this case it began to repeat the adventures of the day before, but in a curiously bizarre manner; and in consequence Saxe found himself being disappointed in the heights of the mountains, which were exceedingly small—mere anthills covered with snow, up which he began to climb so as to stand on their tops; but as he climbed they began to grow, so that there was always a piece more to get up, and so he went on, finding that there was no getting right to the top. Then avalanches began to fall rumbling and roaring down, and covering people at the bottom—hundreds of them, so it seemed to him; and he could hear them moaning under the snow, which by some curious chance of circumstances was just below him. But the odd thing was that they did not seem to mind it much, only moaning piteously and impatiently, as if they were in a hurry for a thaw to come and set them free. Then one of them began to ring the bell for dinner; and another did the same; and Saxe felt that he ought to be doing something to take them food to eat—coarse bread, butter, cheese like Gruyère, full of holes, and a jug of milk, but he did not do it, and the people went on moaning and ringing the bells.

Then he was high up, watching the waterfalls with the silvery rockets slowly descending, and trailing after them their sparkling spray, which kept lighting up with glorious rainbow colours.

Then he was stepping from stone to stone in the ice-cave below the glacier, listening to the gurgling and whishing of the water as it came rushing down over the grey, dark rock from out the narrow arching tunnel which shut up behind him.

How he got out of that place he did not know; but soon after his eyes were aching with the glare of the snow around him. A huge eagle, a hundred times bigger than the one he had seen, was soaring round and round, and coming lower and lower, till it was so close to him that he could feel the wind of its wings wafted pleasantly over his face. The bird’s back was soft and cushiony, and it seemed to be inviting him to take his place upon it for a ride up in the air; and he was thinking of doing so, and gliding off over the silver-topped mountains to look out for caves where they could chip out crystals, and perhaps discover valuable metals; but just as he was about to throw a leg over the feathery saddle and take his seat, there was a fearful yell, that sounded like an accident in a trombone manufactory, where all the instruments had been blown up by an explosion of steam. He was hurled back upon the snow, and held down by some monstrous creature, which planted its feet upon his chest; and the people buried in the snow began to moan more loudly and ring the bells.

Then Saxe opened his eyes, and in his half-awake condition he felt the wafting of the great bird’s wings, heard the moaning of the people buried beneath the avalanche, and listened to them ringing the bells in an impatient way.

“What nonsense, to dream such stuff!” he said impatiently. “Why, it’s the cows lowing in the place underneath, waiting to be milked, and shaking their bells.”

But, all the same, he felt a thrill of horror run through him, and tried to pierce the gloom by which he was surrounded, for certainly something was holding him down with its feet upon his chest, and stooping by him so that he could feel its breath.

The sensation to him was horrible, for it raised its head now, making a strange noise; and he could faintly see by a pencil of light a hideous-looking head, with tall curved horns and a long beard, and though he could not see them, he seemed to feel that a pair of glowing eyes were fixed upon his not a yard away.

There was no time to think or reason in such a position. He could see the head, and feel the pressure of the feet; and he knew that he was not dreaming now. Frightened he was naturally, but he acted at once as a lad of manly character might be expected to act: he struck out with his doubled fist, giving the object a heavy blow just beneath the horns.

The effect was instantaneous. The creature gave a bound, there was a pattering sound on the floor, and something rushed out through the open door, uttering a dismal b–a–a–ah!

“Why, it was a jolly old goat!” said Saxe, half aloud. “I wish I wasn’t such a coward.”

The next moment he was lying back laughing silently, fully grasping his position now, and listening to a rustling movement away to his left.

“That you, Melchior?” he said.

“Ah, herr: awake? Good morning.”

“Not time to get up, is it?”

“Oh yes; it is getting late. Why, it will soon be full day!”

“Oh, will it?” muttered Saxe rather grumpily, for the bed he had despised overnight now seemed temptingly pleasant for another hour or two’s snooze. “What nonsense!” he thought. “Soon be day! I hope we are not always going to get up at such ridiculous times. Well, if I’m to get up, he isn’t going to be snoozing there.”

He leaned over and stretched out his hand; but that was not sufficient, for their bed was wide, and he had to creep a yard or two before he could grasp his companion’s shoulder.

“It’s to-morrow morning, Mr Dale,” he said.

“Eh? yes! All right. Where’s Melchior?” cried Dale, springing up.

“Here, herr,” said the guide from the door. “A beautiful morning, and I think a fine day.”

“That’s right,” said Dale, shaking the hay from his clothes.

“Shall I ask where the dressing and bath-rooms are?” said Saxe, grinning.

“No,” said Dale quietly; “I’ll show you.”

He led the way out of the chalet, where they met the furtive-looking man they had seen overnight. He gave them another sidelong look, said Guten morgen surlily, and then, as it seemed to Saxe, began to put on his tail—that is to say, he strapped on his one-legged milking-stool, and went to meet one of the cows.

“This way to the bath-room, Saxe,” said Dale; and he led the way to the foot of the nearest fall, whose icy water came showering down softly as if it were from a cloud. Here there was a pool of the greatest limpidity, broad, deep, and ground out of the solid rock by the constant dropping that wears a stone.

There were no remains of sleep about Saxe’s eyes after his ablutions, and they walked back towards the chalet, meeting Melchior.

“There is some breakfast ready, herr,” he said; “and I should like to know whether it would be wise to get your things up here and stay for a few days.”

“An excellent proposal; but how are we to get them?”

“Oh, there are men who would fetch them; or Andregg would send Pierre with his mule.”

“Who is Pierre?—that man we saw milking?”

“Yes, herr. I don’t like him, but he is honest, and will do that very well. Shall I send? After you have done here, I can get them carried farther over the mountains, or, if you liked, we could hire Andregg’s mule for use at once.”

“But the mountains? Can he climb?”

Melchior laughed.

“Almost anywhere. I think he could even beat us. He is a wonderful beast.”

The proposal was agreed to, and after they had partaken of their homely breakfast, Andregg was questioned about the mule.

Oh yes, he was quite willing to lend it, for as many days or weeks as the herr liked.

“Then I’ll have it to carry our little tent, rugs and provisions. I promise you I will feed the animal well.”

“The herr need not trouble himself,” said Andregg; “Gros will feed himself.”

“Well, then, I will not work him too hard.”

“I am not afraid, herr,” said the sturdy grey-haired old Swiss, smiling; “he always lies down when he is tired.”

“Then I will not beat him.”

“No, herr,” said Andregg; “he will not let you.”

“Here, I want to see that mule!” cried Saxe.

“Oh yes, the young herr shall see him,” said the old Swiss; and he went to the door and uttered a peculiar jodel, which was answered directly by a horrible bray which Saxe recognised as the yell he had heard before he was awake.

“Nein—nein—nein—nein!” shouted the old Swiss, and the donkey’s bray died off into a sobbing moan. As this was ended, the old man jodelled again, apparently without result; but soon after there was a snort, and a peculiar-looking animal came trotting down from the mountain, whisking its long tail from side to side and pointing its long ears forward. But as it came close up, it suddenly stopped, and spun round as if upon a pivot.

“Here, come round and let’s look at your head,” cried Saxe.

“No; he will not turn till he knows you well,” cried the old man; “he’s very bashful, is Gros. You must make friends with him by degrees, and then he is quite a brother to any one in the mountains.”

“But how am I to make friends with him?” cried Saxe.

“Get a piece of bread for the young herr, Melchior Staffeln,” said the old man. “When it comes,” he continued, “you may tempt Gros to come to you; but he is very particular, and may not like you, because you are foreigners.”

The bread was brought. Saxe took it, and held it out to the mule, which slightly turned its head, gazed at it wistfully, but kept its hind quarters toward the would-be donor, turning as he turned, in spite of sundry coaxing words.

“Here, turn round,” cried Saxe: “you can’t eat with your tail.”

“Don’t go too close, herr,” said the old Swiss; “I don’t think he would, but he might kick.”

“And I think it’s very probable that he will,” said Dale sharply; “that right hind leg is all of a quiver. Why, the brute’s vicious, Melchior!” he said, in German.

“No, no—not vicious,” said the old Swiss; “it’s only that he’s frightened and bashful: he isn’t used to company, herr. Be patient with him, and he’s a beast that would almost lay down his life for you.”

“Looks more like laying down our lives,” said Saxe, making a sudden dart round, as the mule was watching Dale, and then, as the animal turned sharply, holding out the bread.

Perhaps the wind bore the scent of the piece of loaf to the mule’s nostrils, and the temptation was too great to resist. At any rate it stretched out its neck and extended its muzzle, so that head and neck were nearly in a straight line, and uttered a shrill, squealing whinny, which was answered at once by the donkey with a sonorous trumpeting bray, as the lesser animal came cantering up with tail and ears cocked.

“Ah! child of the evil one!” shouted old Andregg, “go back to your pasture;” and stooping down, he picked up a piece of freshly cut pine-wood, and threw it at the offending animal, missing him, but making him put his head down between his fore legs, and kick out his hind legs in defiance, before cantering off again.

By this time the mule was sniffing at the bread, and drawing nearer and nearer to Saxe’s extended hand, consenting finally to take it and begin to eat.

“Is it not beautiful?” cried old Andregg, smiling. “Behold, you have made a friend who will serve you like a dog.”

“I can’t see anything very beautiful in it, Mr Dale,” said Saxe, who had now advanced so far that he was permitted to pat the mule’s neck; “and what does he mean by ‘serve you like a dog’? Bite! He looks as if he could.”

“He will be very useful to us, herr, and save us many a long weary tramp,” said the guide, smiling. “I am willing and strong, but I cannot guide and carry much as well, and if you share the load with me, your climbing will be too laborious. With the mule to drive before us, we can take water, food, and blankets, beside a kettle for coffee; and sleep for one, two or three nights in the mountains, if we like. Shall we take him to-day?”

“I thought he was to be sent down the valley for our portmanteau and things,” said Dale.

“Andregg can send the donkey,” replied Melchior.

“Then by all means let us take the animal. I wish, though, that we had our ice-axes and rope, that I left at the chalet below.”

“They will be ready for our next journey,” said Melchior. And after due instructions had been given to old Andregg and his man Pierre, preparations were made for a fresh start up the mountains.

These did not take long. A kind of basket was secured firmly on the mule’s back, and old Andregg, under Melchior’s directions, produced a couple of worn ice-picks or axes, blankets, bottles, a kettle for coffee, and a little ready-chopped wood to supply the first start to the twigs and branches they would collect before leaving the forest.

By the time the mule was loaded with everything deemed necessary, Pierre was ready with the donkey, and the start was made together up and down the valley. At least, that was intended; but there were objections raised by the two four-footed friends, both wanting to go together; and when at last, after a volley of angry language from Andregg, the donkey was dragged by Pierre along the track, it began to bray loudly.

This was sufficient to attract the mule, which whinnied and tried to follow the donkey.

Melchior seized the bridle and checked him, just as they were ascending the first of a series of zigzags leading out of the deep valley, with the result that the donkey brayed again and had to be held by main force by Pierre’s arm round his neck, for he had dragged his head out of the bridle; while Gros began to kick and back and behave so obstreperously that Dale gave him a sharp prod with the end of his alpenstock.

Misplaced prod! It was an unhappy touch, making, as it did, Gros give a tremendous plunge off the narrow mule-track, to come down on a slope so steep that he lost his footing, fell, and rolled over and over in a wonderful way, scattering bottles, wood, and tins from the basket, all of which went careering down the side of the valley with the mule, leaping, bounding and rattling and creaking in a way which drove the poor beast nearly frantic with fear, the catastrophe being in no wise bettered by the shouts of Andregg and the dismal brayings of the donkey, which seemed to be frantic in the endeavour to join his unfortunate friend.

The roll down was neither long enough nor dangerous enough to do any harm to Gros; but the state of the scattered cargo, as it was collected and carried to where the mule stood shivering, stamping and kicking at the basket as it hung down now between his legs, was deplorable, and meant a delay of half an hour before a fresh start could be made.

“You must be kind to Gros, herr,” said the old Swiss reproachfully. “He always hated to be pricked by the iron point of an alpenstock. I have known him bite boys who used their alpenstocks to him.”

“That’s a hint for you, Saxe,” said Dale merrily. “Worse disasters at sea,” he cried. “Now, Melchior, are we all ready once more?”

“Yes, herr,” replied the guide.

“Then which way do you propose going, after we get up out of the valley?”

“Over yonder, between those two peaks, herr,” said the man, pointing.

“With the mule? Is it possible?”

“I think so, herr; and if you like we will try. I don’t think there will be much snow in the pass—no more than the mule can manage. And, once there, I think we can descend into a wild valley below the snow-line—one where man very seldom treads.”

“Excellent,” said Dale. And they started, leaving old Andregg and his wife collecting the broken bottles and damaged articles below.

They had not ascended above half a dozen of the many zigzags of the path, when the bray of the donkey came faintly from behind, and Gros set up his ears, stopped, whinnied, and looked as if he were about to turn back; but this time kindness was tried, Melchior snatching a piece of bread from his pocket and walking on, holding it behind him.

The result was excellent. The bray of Gros’s relative was forgotten, and he increased his pace, sniffing at the bread till he could succeed in taking it from the guide’s hand, and, steadily journeying on, munch the sweet, fresh food.

In spite of the delay it was still early; and, feeling no trace of his last night’s weariness, Saxe tramped on along the zigzag shelf in the valley side, till the edge of the steep part was reached. Melchior strode off to the right, and then to the left, so as to reach the narrow valley down which the stream came that had supplied them with water for their morning’s bath.

This was a mere crack running up into the mountains, but with a little care a path was found upon the steep alp which formed one side, and when this became too precipitous, they descended into the rocky bed, and slowly made their way on till an opportunity for ascending to higher ground presented itself.

The progress made was very slow, but wonderfully interesting, from the variety of moisture-loving plants which took Dale’s attention, and the brightly coloured insects, which took that of Saxe, while the mule was perfectly content to wait while a halt was called to capture insect or secure plant; the solemn-looking animal standing fetlock-deep in the water, and browsing on the herbage in the various crannies among the stones.

One of these halts was in an opening out of the narrow gorge running nearly east and west, so that it was flooded by the morning sun; and here, as the limpid water trickled and glided over the sandy bed, Dale took a shallow tin from the mule’s pannier and lowered himself down to the edge of the stream.

Taking hold of a piece of rock so as to reach out, he bent down and scooped out half a panful of sand, where there was an eddy; and as the mule began to munch, and Saxe watched his leader’s acts, Melchior pulled out his pipe, struck a match, and began to smoke.

“The herr is going to try for gold,” he said quietly to Saxe; but Dale heard it.

“Yes. Is there much here, do you think?”

“It is too much to say, herr,” replied the guide. “There may be, but I have never known any to be found on this side of the mountains.”

“Is any found on the other side, then?”

“Oh yes, on the Italian slope, herr, and down in the valleys, they seek for and find gold—not much, but some.”

“Got any, sir?” said Saxe.

“I don’t know myself,” replied Dale, who was washing the heavier gravel away, and picking out the stones he brought to the surface by a skilful motion of the pan beneath the water. “I must wash out all the sand first before I look to see if there is colour, as the American gold-finders call it.”

“Is there another pan, Melchior?” said Saxe; “I want to try too.”

“No, herr, there is only one.”

“You wait, and let’s see what I find, my lad. I expect it will be nothing. There’s a nice fragment of onyx,” he continued, picking out and pitching up a piece of flinty-looking rock to the lad. “I dare say there are some good agates here too, if we searched for them.”

Dale spent about a quarter of an hour getting rid of every scrap of the granite; then held the pan in the bright sunshine, so that the water drained off and the rays shone full upon the bottom of the vessel.

He turned it about at different angles, shook the fine sand, and turned it over with his fingers; but ended by shaking his head.

“No luck, sir?”

“Not a speck. Never mind; I’ll try again.”

He dug down with the edge of the tin, scooping out a good deal of sand, so as to get a tinful from as deep down as he could.

“Gold is heavy, and would sink low if it were washed down,” he said; and for the next quarter of an hour he repeated the washing process, while Melchior smoked, the mule browsed on the succulent herbage, and Saxe devoted himself to creeping farther along by the stream, and peering down into the pools in search of trout.

“That old fellow at the chalet said the mule would feed himself, Mr Dale,” said the boy suddenly.

“Yes, he will not be much trouble to us that way,” replied Dale, still plying the pan vigorously; when the mule suddenly reared its head, cocked its ears forward, and whinnied.

Chapter Seven.

Melchior grows Suspicious.

“Hallo! another donkey coming,” cried Saxe, and he looked up, and then at Melchior, who had thrust his pipe into his wallet and was peering up the sides of the valley.

“I don’t see one,” he said; “but there must be something to take the thing’s attention.”

The mule whinnied again.

“It is not another mule or donkey,” said Melchior, peering upward. “They would have answered his challenge. It must be a man.”

He began to climb up to get to a position where he could look up and down the gorge; while Dale, being more interested in the contents of his pan, went on till he had washed enough, and began now to search for specks or tiny scales of gold.

“Must have been some one Gros knew,” said the guide to himself, as he still looked about sharply.

“Anything the matter, Melchior?” cried Saxe.

“No, sir, no. I was only trying to make out who was coming up this way.”

“Not a speck,” said Dale, rinsing his pan in the pure water.

“Will the herr try again?”

“No, not here,” replied Dale. “Let’s get on: I’m wasting time.”

“No,” said Melchior; “the herr is making his researches into the wonders of Nature. It cannot be waste of time.”

“Well, no, I suppose not, my man. It is all learning. But what was the mule whinnying about!”

“I don’t know,” replied the guide in a peculiar tone. “It seemed to me that some one he knew was following us.”

“What for?” said Dale.

“Ah! that I don’t know, sir. From curiosity, perhaps.”

“But there is no one who could come but old Andregg; and he would not, surely?”

“No, sir; he is too simple and honest to follow us, unless it were to make sure that we were behaving well to his mule. It must have been that. The animal heard or smelt him, and challenged.”

“But you would have seen him, Melchior.”

“I might, sir, but perhaps not. There are plenty of places where a man might hide who did not wish to be seen.”

“I say, young man,” said Dale, “have you a great love for the mysterious?”

“I do not understand you, herr.”

“I mean, are you disposed to fancy things, and imagine troubles where there are none?”

“No, herr; I think I am rather dull,” said the guide modestly. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that mule made a noise, and you instantly imagined that we were being followed and watched.”

“Oh, that! Yes, herr. Our people are curious. Years ago we used to go on quietly tending our cows and goats in the valleys, and driving them up to the huts on the mountains when the snow melted. There were the great stocks and horns and spitzes towering up, covered with eternal snow, and we gazed at them with awe. Then you Englishmen came, and wanted to go up and up where the foot of man never before stepped; and even our most daring chamois hunters watched you all with wonder.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Dale, smiling, as he looked in the guide’s frank face.

“You wanted guides to the mountains, and we showed you the way, while you taught us that we could climb too, and could be as cool and daring. We did not know it before, and we had to get over our suspicions. For we said, ‘these strangers must want to find something in the mountains—something that will pay them for the risk they run in climbing up to the places where the demons of the storm dwell, and who wait to hurl down stones and dart lightning at the daring people who would venture up into their homes.’”

“And very dangerous those bad spirits are—eh, Melchior!” said Dale, smiling.

“Terribly, herr,” said the guide. “And you laugh. I don’t wonder. But there are plenty of our simple, uneducated people in the villages who believe all that still. I heard it all as a child, and it took a great deal of quiet thinking, as I grew up, before I could shake off all those follies, and see that there was nothing to fear high up, but the ice and wind and snow, with the dangers of the climbing. Why, fifty years ago, if a man climbed and fell, the people thought he had been thrown down by evil spirits. Many think so now in the out-of-the-way valleys.”

“Then you are not superstitious, Melchior?”

“I hope not, herr,” said the guide reverently; “but there are plenty of my people who are, and suspicious as well. I am only an ignorant man, but I believe in wisdom; and I have lived to see that you Englishmen find pleasure in reading the books of the great God, written with His finger on the mountains and in the valleys; to know how you collect the lowliest flowers, and can show us the wonders of their shape and how they grow. Then I know, too, how you find wonders in the great rocks, and can show me how they are made of different stone, which is always being ground down to come into the valleys to make them rich. I know all this, herr; and so I do not wonder and doubt when you ask me to show you some of the wildest places in the mountains, where you may find crystals and see glaciers and caves scarcely any of us have ventured to search. But if I told some of our people that you spend your money and your time in seeking and examining all this, they would only laugh and call me a fool. They would say, ‘we know better. He has blinded you. He is seeking for gold and diamonds.’ And I could not make them believe it is all in the pursuit of—what do you call that!”

“Science?”

“Yes, science; that is the word. And in their ignorance they will follow and watch us, if we do not take care to avoid them.”

“You think, then, that some one has been following us?”

“Undoubtedly, sir; and if it is so, we shall have trouble.”

“Pooh! They will, you mean. But I’m not going to worry myself about that. There—let’s get on.”

Melchior gave a quick glance backward, and Saxe followed his example, his eyes catching directly a glimpse as he thought, of a human face high up, and peering down at them from among some stones which had fallen upon a ledge.

But the glimpse was only instantaneous, and as he looked he felt that he could not be sure, and that it might be one of the blocks of lichened stones that he had taken for a face.

They went on slowly and more slowly, for the path grew so difficult that it was easy to imagine that no one had ever been along there before, and Saxe said so.

“Oh yes,” said Melchior; “I have often been along here. It has been my business these many years to go everywhere and find strange wild places in the mountains. The men, too, who hunt the chamois and the bear—”

“Eh? what?” cried Saxe, plucking up his ears. “Bears! There are no bears here.”

“Oh yes,” said the guide, smiling. “Not many; but there are bears in the mountains. I have seen them several times, and the ibex too, more to the south, on the Italian slope.”

“Shall we see them?”

“You may, herr. Perhaps we shall come across a chamois or two to-day, far up yonder in the distance.”

“Let’s get on, then,” said Saxe eagerly. “But hallo! how are we to get the mule up that pile of rocks?”

“That!” said the guide quietly; “he will climb that better than we shall.”

He was right, for the sure-footed creature breasted the obstacle of a hundred feet of piled-up blocks very coolly, picking his way patiently, and with a certainty that was surprising.

“Why, the mule is as active as a goat!” cried Dale.

“Well, not quite, herr,” said Melchior. “But, as I said, you will find that he will go anywhere that we do, except upon the ice. There he loses his footing at once, and the labour is too great to cut steps for an animal like that.”

The great pile of loose blocks was surmounted, and at the top Saxe stood and saw that it was evidently the remains of a slip from the mountain up to their right, which had fallen perhaps hundreds of years before, and blocked up the narrow gorge, forming a long, deep, winding lake in the mountain solitude.

“Fish? Oh yes—plenty,” said the guide, “and easily caught; but they are very small. There is not food enough for them to grow big and heavy, as they do in the large lakes.”

“Well,” said Dale, after a few minutes’ study of their surroundings, “this is wild and grand indeed. How far does the lake run up there? Of course it winds round more at the other end!”

“Yes, herr, for miles; and gets narrower, till it is like a river.”

“Grand indeed; but it is like a vast stone wall all round, and as far as we can see. Must we go back again?”

“Yes,” said Saxe promptly; “there’s no means of getting along any farther.”

The guide smiled, went a little to the left, and plunged at once into a long crack between two masses of rock, so narrow that as the mule followed without hesitation, the sides of the basket almost touched the rock.

“We can’t say our guide is of no use, Saxe,” cried Dale, laughing. “Come along. Well, do you like this rough climbing, or would you rather get back to the paths of the beaten track.”

“I love it,” cried Saxe excitedly. “It’s all so new and strange. Why didn’t we come here before?”

“You should say, why do not the tourists come into these wild places instead of going year after year in the same ruts, where they can have big hotels and people to wait upon them? Look, there’s a view!” he continued, pointing along a narrow gorge between the mountains at a distant peak which stood up like the top of a sugar-loaf, only more white.

“I was looking at that view,” said Saxe, pointing downward at the hind quarters of the mule, which was the only part visible, the descent was so steep, to where they came upon a sheltered grove of pines, whose sombre green stood out in bright contrast to the dull grey rocks.

Then onward slowly for hours—at times in the valley, where their feet crushed the beautiful tufts of ferns; then the hoofs of the mule were clattering over rounded masses of stone, ground and polished, over which the patient beast slipped and slid, but never went down. Now and then there was a glimpse of a peak here or of another turning or rift there; but for the most part they were completely shut in down between walls of rock, which echoed their voices, bursting forth into quite an answering chorus when Melchior gave forth a loud, melodious jodel.

“But doesn’t any one live here?” said Saxe at last.

“No, herr!”

“No farmers or cottage people? Are there no villages?”

“No, herr. How could man live up here in these solitudes? It is bright and beautiful now, with moss and dwarf firs and ferns; but food would not grow here. Then there is no grass for the cattle; and in the winter it is all deep in snow, and the winds tear down these valleys, so that it is only in sheltered places that the pines can stand. Am I leading the herrs right? Is this the kind of scenery they wish to see?”

“Capital!” cried Saxe.

“Yes,” said Dale quietly, as his eyes wandered up the wall-like sides of the gorge they were in; “but there ought to be rifts and caverns up in these narrow valleys where I could find what I seek.”

“After awhile, herr, after awhile. When we get to the end of this thal we shall come upon a larger lake. We shall go along one shore of that to where it empties itself. There is much water in it, for three glaciers run down toward it. At the other end, beyond the schlucht, we shall be in the greater valley, between the mountains I pointed to this morning; and there you will find steeper places than this, wilder and stranger, where we can camp for to-night, and to-morrow you can choose.”

“Very good: I leave it to you; but if we pass anything you think would be interesting, stop.”

They had zigzagged about, and climbed up and up as well as descended, so that Saxe had quite lost count of the direction.

“Which way are we going now?” he said at last.

“Nearly due south.”

“Then that’s toward Italy?”

“Yes. As the crow flies we can’t be many miles from the border.”

“How rum!” said Saxe to himself. Then, aloud, “Over more mountains, I suppose?”

“Over those and many others beyond them,” replied Dale; and then, as they followed each other in single file, Melchior leading and the mule close at his heels like a dog, weariness and the heat of the narrow sun-bathed gorge put an end to conversation, till Saxe noticed that the waters foaming along far down in the bottom were running in the same direction as they were going, whereas earlier in the day they met them.

“We are in another valley, going toward a different lake,” said Dale, in answer to a remark; “and look: that must be it. No, no—that way to the left.”

Saxe looked, and saw a gleam of silver between two nearly perpendicular walls; and half an hour afterwards they were traversing a narrow ledge running some few feet above the dark blue waters of a lake shut in apparently on all sides by similar walls of rock, which it would have been impossible to scale.

“The herr will be careful along here,” said Melchior, pausing for a minute at a slightly wider part of the shelf to let the mule pass him. “Shall we have the rope!”

“What do you say, Saxe?” said Dale. “If it is no narrower than this, I think we can keep our heads.”

“Oh, I can manage,” said Saxe. “Besides, if one fell, it is only into the water. Is it deep, Melchior?”

“Hundreds of feet, I think,” said the guide; “and it would be bad to fall in. I could soon throw you the rope, but the waters are icily cold, and might make you too helpless to swim. Still, it is better to grow accustomed to walking places like this without the rope.”

“Oh yes,” said Saxe, coolly enough; “I don’t feel frightened.”

“I hope you would speak out frankly if you were nervous,” said Dale: “it might save an accident. False shame would be folly here.”

“Oh, I’ll speak,” said Saxe, as his eyes wandered over the blue water that lay like a mirror reflecting the mountains round. “What a place it looks for fish! There are plenty here, eh, Melchior?”

“I have seen small ones leap out—that is all.”

“But what’s the matter with the mule? He can’t get any farther.”

“Oh yes; there is a good path to where the river runs out. He does not like to go on by himself. I must get by him again, and lead.”

It was easier said than done, for the path was so narrow that Melchior had to press the mule close to the perpendicular rock, and hold on by the pack-saddle and then by the animal’s neck, to get by. Once he did slip, his foot gliding over the edge; but by throwing himself forward he saved himself, clung to the path for a few minutes as he hung over it, his chest and arms resting thereon till he could get one knee up.

The rest was easy, and he rose once more to his feet.

“Hah!” ejaculated Saxe, “I thought you were gone, and we had no rope to throw to you.”

“It was rather awkward, herr,” said the guide coolly. “It is bad, too, to get wet when one is hot with walking.”

Chapter Eight.

An awkward Accident.

“I sat!” cried Saxe, as the guide led on again, and the mule followed patiently enough.

“Yes, herr.”

“Suppose two goats were to meet here, what would they do!”

“One would lie down and the other jump over him.”

“But suppose it were two mules?”

“I don’t know, herr. One of them might make the other back all the way; but mules are stubborn, and I’m afraid that one would push the other off.”

“And what then?”

“He would swim for awhile, and then drown.”

“Why,” said Saxe, “I thought this lake was very beautiful; but you seem to be taking all the blue out of it. Ugh! why, it would be like falling into a well and trying to get out. I shall be glad to get away from this place.”

“That’s imagination, Saxe,” said Dale; “and imagination is something all mountaineers should leave behind.”

“Why?” said Saxe argumentatively.

“Don’t go so near to the mule’s heels: if he kicks you, nothing could save you from a fall into the lake.”

“That’s imagination, sir,” said Saxe, laughing; “and imagination is something all mountaineers should leave behind.”

Dale frowned, but laughed directly after.

“Pert, but smart, Saxe,” he said. “Seriously, though, a mountain climber, who must naturally be often walking along risky places, has enough to think about without indulging in fancies of what might be if this happened or that took place. Such thoughts may unnerve him; and you may depend upon it, some of the bravest things are done by those who think the least. I remember, one day in London, seeing the men taking down one of those vast scaffolds formed, not of poles, but of square timbers bolted together; and I saw one man, about a hundred and fifty feet from the ground, standing on one of these pieces of timber, which was fastened to an upright at each end. He was looking on while another workman unscrewed one of the bolts which held it.”

“How wide was it?” said Saxe, looking down at the narrow shelf of rock upon which he was walking.

“About ten inches, I suppose. There was nothing near him, for he was on the very top of the scaffolding, which swayed a little with the weight of the wood; but he seemed perfectly cool and comfortable up there, and after a few minutes he turned and walked along it to the other end, while I, who have often gone along dangerous ledges of ice, felt my hands turn wet inside.”

“With fright?”

“Call it nervousness,” said Dale. “No: call it fear or fright. Of course I imagined that at any moment the poor fellow might turn giddy and fall. But if that beam had been lying on the pavement, any one would have walked or run along it without hesitation, for there is no question of balancing on a piece of flat wood ten inches wide. The imagination is the danger.”

“Then sailors can’t have any imagination,” said Saxe thoughtfully.

“It is to be hoped not, of that kind. If they ever thought of falling, they would never be able to run along the yards of a big ship as they do.”

“Well, I’ll try and not have any imagination,” said Saxe. “I shouldn’t like you to say you wished that you had not brought me, for you could not go anywhere you wanted because I was such a coward.”

“I trust to you to be neither cowardly nor rash,” said Dale, “and you may trust to me not to take you into more dangerous places than I can help. But it really is a matter of habit. Why, people never think of the danger, but every time they run up or downstairs they risk a severe fall; and I once knew of a sailor lad, accustomed to go aloft and climb over the bulwarks into the main chains or the rigging under the bowsprit, who would pull all the clothes off his bed of a night and make them up on the floor, because he was afraid of tumbling out of bed in the night. Hah! we are getting near the end of the lake. Why, Saxe, it does look black and deep!”

“But I don’t see any place where it runs out,” said Saxe. “There ought to be a river or a waterfall here, oughtn’t there!”

“Wait a few minutes, and we shall see. Ah! to be sure—there it is; the sides are so close together that they hardly show, but you can see now where the ledge runs, right to that corner.”

A hundred yards farther along the narrow ledge—a fault in the strata which formed that side of the lake—and all doubt of their being at the exit of the waters was at rest, for Melchior stopped short where the ledge widened into a little platform at the angle of the rock forming one of the sides of a mere crack in the titanic wall of perpendicular mountain, which in places actually overhung them, and ran up fully a thousand feet.

The opening where they stood was some twenty feet wide, and through it the waters of the lake poured with a low rushing sound, which seemed to deepen farther in to a roar.

Saxe was pressing forward to look in at the opening; but Melchior met them and pointed back over the lake, at the head of which rose a huge mountain mass, snow-clad and glistening, on either side of which glaciers could be seen running sharply down, while away on the left another winding, frozen river descended.

“Grand!” exclaimed Dale; but the next moment he turned to the opening by which they stood, the rushing waters having a weird fascination for them both.

“The schlucht,” said Melchior quietly.

“I say,” said Saxe: “you don’t mean to say we’ve got to go through there?”

“Yes,” said the guide calmly. “I have never taken a mule through, but I think we can manage it.”

“But is it all like this?” said Saxe, looking aghast.

“Oh no, herr; it runs together a few yards farther in, and is so narrow that in one place you can stretch your arms and touch both sides at once.”

“Then it is open right through?”

“Yes, herr. The mountain must have split open at some time or other, to let the water of the lake run out.”

“Yes; and how far is it through?” said Dale.

“About a mile: less than half an hour.”

“And this ledge goes right along?”

“Just as it has run by the side of the lake, herr. A little narrower sometimes.”

“But you say the gorge—the crack—gets narrower directly.”

“Oh yes—much, herr. It is never so wide as this.”

“But the water: is there room for it?”

“The crack or split in the rocks must be very deep down, for all the water from the lake runs through here, and it’s quite a big river on the other side.”

“And what other way is there, Melchior?” asked Saxe.

“The way we came.”

“No other?”

The guide shook his head.

“What do you think of it, Saxe? Will you venture?”

The lad drew a long breath, and said, through his teeth—

“Yes. I’m not going to be beaten by a mule!”

“Go on, then,” said Dale quietly, “and as soon as we are through we must have a halt for a meal.”

“Not as soon as we are through, herr,” said Melchior, smiling; and he began to unfasten the mule’s girths.

“What are you doing?” cried Saxe.

“Taking off the pannier,” replied the guide. “The ledge is narrow farther in, and it would be awkward if the basket caught against the rock. It might cause him to make a false step, and it would be a bad place to fall in.”

“Bad place? Horrible!” said Dale, frowning.

“But, I say, you can’t leave the basket behind with all the victuals,” cried Saxe.

“No, herr; as soon as the mule is through, I shall come back and fetch it.”

“We two must carry it between us, slung on the alpenstocks,” said Dale.

“No, herr, I will manage it all,” said Melchior quietly. “I can soon fetch the basket, and it will be better. The young herr will want all his activity to get along without a load. I have been here four times before. I should have been five times; but one May the snow had melted after a great rain, and the lake was so full that the waters were feet above the pathway, and they rushed through, so that the great walls of rock shook as if they would fall in. There,” he said, removing the mule’s load and carrying it two or three yards back, to place it against the natural wall. “It will be quite safe there,” he continued, with a smile; “nobody will come. Ah, Gros, my friend, is that cool and restful?”

The mule whinnied, arched up its back, and shook itself, swung back its head, first one side then on the other, to bite at the hot place where the basket had been, but apparently without allaying the hot irritation which troubled it.

“Ah! come along Gros,” cried Melchior, twining the rope bridle about his arm; “that will soon be better. Follow pretty close, gentlemen: it is rather dark, but cool and pleasant after the hot sunshine.”

“Well done, Saxe!” said Dale, with a smile; “that’s brave.”

“What is, sir? I did not say or do anything.”

“Yes, you did, boy,” whispered Dale; and the lad flushed a little. “You bit your lips and then set your teeth, and you said to yourself, ‘he sha’n’t see that I am afraid!’ Didn’t you?”

Saxe looked at him inquiringly, and took off his cap and wiped his brow, while his alpenstock rested in the hollow of his arm.

“Something like it, sir,” said Saxe, rather dolefully. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Of course not.”

“Ach! Dummkopf! What do you do?” cried the guide angrily; for just at that moment the mule uttered a loud squeal, arched its back, and leaped off the rock; came down on all fours, and then threw itself upon its flanks, in spite of a jerk at the bridle; squealed again, and threw up its legs, which fell back against the rocky wall; threw them up again, and for a moment they were perpendicular, so well was the balance kept, as the animal wriggled its spine so as to get a good rub on the rock. Then, while the two travellers realised the danger of this taking place on the narrow platform, not a dozen feet above the rushing water, and Melchior still jerked at the bridle, over went the animal’s legs toward the edge, and it tried to gather them up for another roll.

It had another roll, but it was a roll off the edge, and almost before Dale and his companion could fully grasp the extent of the accident, the mule fell with a tremendous splash into the stream, jerking Melchior after it by the wrist. Then they both disappeared. But only for a few moments.

“Look! look!” yelled Saxe, as the mule’s head shot up in the shadow thirty or forty feet farther in, so swift was the current. Then up came its forelegs, and it began to paw the water like a drowning dog, just as Melchior rose to the surface, but only in time to receive the hoofs of the struggling mule on his chest, and he disappeared again, while the water rolled the mule over and down out of sight.

The next moment both were swept right into the gloomy cavernous place, to what was evidently certain death.

Chapter Nine.

The Horrors of a Schlucht.

Saxe stood now paralysed with horror, and it was not until Dale had shaken him twice that his fixed, wild manner began to pass off.

“Stop here,” cried Dale: “you are too much unnerved to come.”

“Where—where are you going?” cried the lad; and before an answer could be given, he cried: “Yes; yes, go on: I’m ready.”

“I tell you that you are too much unnerved to venture!” cried Dale angrily. “Am I to lose you both?”

He turned and hurried out of sight; but he had not gone fifty yards along the narrow ledge into the gloomy crack before he heard a hoarse sound, and turning sharply back, there was Saxe close behind.

“Don’t send me back,” cried the lad: “I can’t stand here doing nothing. I must come and help.”

“Come, then!” shouted Dale, his voice sounding smothered and weak in the echoing rush of the waters, which glided in at the funnel-like opening smooth and glassy, now leaped forward and roared as they careered madly along, leaping up and licking at the rugged but smoothly polished walls, charging into cracks and crevices, and falling back broken up into foam, and ever forced onward at a tremendous rate by the mass of water behind.

The place itself would in bright sunshine have made the stoutest-hearted pause and draw breath before adventuring its passage; but seen in the weird subdued light which came down filtered through the trees which overhung the chasm a thousand feet above, it seemed terrible. For only at intervals could a glimpse of the sky be seen, while as they penetrated farther, the walls, which almost exactly matched in curve, angle and depression, came nearer together, and the place darkened.

“Take care—take care!” Dale cried from time to time, as he found portions of the ledge narrower and more difficult; but Saxe did not speak, only crept on, with his left hand grasping every inequality of the rock, and, like his leader, glancing down into the mad race of foaming water, in the hope of catching sight of Melchior’s upturned face and outstretched hands.

It never occurred to him that they could render no help, even if they did catch sight of their unfortunate companion; for they were never less than twenty feet above the narrow hissing and roaring stream, and there was not a spot where a rock could be grasped: everything was worn too smooth by the constant passage of the water, which doubtless carried with it stones from the lake as well as those ever loosened by frost and crumbling down from above, to aid in grinding the walls quite smooth.

But there was the possibility of the unfortunate man being thrown into one of the vast pot-holes or cauldrons formed cavern-like in bends of the chasm, where as it rushed along past the zigzag of the broken rock the water glanced from one side, and shot almost at right angles across to the other, to whirl round and round, ever enlarging a great well-like hole, the centre of which looked like a funnel-like whirlpool, with the water screwing its way apparently into the bowels of the earth, and down whose watery throat great balls of foam were constantly being sucked.

From time to time, as Dale rested for a few moments to peer into one of these, he raised his eyes to look back hopelessly at Saxe, who could only shake his head in his utter despair, knowing only too well that it was hopeless.

Then on and on again, with the horror of the terrible place seeming to crush them down, while to Saxe it was as if the waters were trying to leap at him to wash him from the narrow ledge and bear him away. And the farther they went on the more fearful the place seemed to grow. The walls dripped with moisture, as a result of the spray which rose from the hurrying race, and shut them in back and front with a gloomy mist, which struck cold and dank as it moistened their faces and seemed choking to breathe.

Again Dale paused, to peer down at one of the great whirling pools beneath the rock, which was being undermined in this place more than ever; and as Saxe clung by him and gazed down too, there was the perfectly round pool of water, with its central pipe, which, by the optical illusion caused by the gloom and mist, looked reversed—that is, as if the concavity were convex, and he were gazing at the eye of some subterranean monster, the effect being made more realistic by the rock overhanging it like a huge brow.

“Come on,” cried Dale. But Saxe was fascinated, and did not hear his voice in the hollow, echoing, pipe-like roar.

“Come on, boy—quick!” he shouted again. But Saxe still bent down over the racing waters, to stare at that awful similitude of an eye, which moved strangely and bemused and fascinated him so that he looked as if he would be drawn down into it and be a victim to the awful place.

“Saxe! Saxe!” shouted Dale, seizing him by the arm; and the boy started and gazed at him wildly. “Can you see him!”

“No, no,” cried the boy.

“What were you looking at!”

“That! that!” gasped Saxe.

“Ah! yes. Like some terrible eye. Come along. I can’t think that anything would stay here. It would be swept along at a tremendous rate. That water is going almost at the rate of a great fall. They must have been borne right through long ago.”

“Think so?” Saxe tried to say. Certainly his lips moved; and roused now from the strange fascination, he crept on after his leader, their progress being very slow in spite of their anxiety, for all was new and strange, and the next step, for aught they knew, might plunge them down to a fall like their guide’s.

Then the way was dangerously narrow at times, one dripping place forcing them to stoop—so heavily overhung the rock above.

At last, just in front of them, the gorge seemed to end, for the place was blocked by a wall that ran across the narrow rift at right angles, and against this the whole body of water was propelled, to strike straight upon it, and rise up like a billow of the sea and fall back with a furious roar. Here the foam formed so dense a mist that Dale had crept right into it before he realised that, as the water fell back, it shot away through the gloom to his left, forming a fresh billow against a perpendicular wall before it again darted onward.

“Has this awful place no end!” he said, as he grasped the meaning of this fresh disturbance of its course; and he peered forward again for the path, it being absolute madness to think of seeing anything in the watery chaos below. Then, looking back, it was as if some icy hand had clutched his heart, for he was alone.

For the moment he felt that Saxe must have slipped and fallen, and in the agony he suffered he fancied himself back again in England facing the boy’s father and trying to plead some excuse for the want of care. Saxe was entrusted to him for a few months’ visit to the Alps—a visit to combine pleasure and instruction, as well as to gain more robust health.

As he thought this he was already on his way back to the sharp angle he had passed round, and as he reached it his horror and despair became almost unbearable.

But this part of his suffering had its termination; and he fully grasped that, like as in a dream, all this had occupied but a few moments of time, for a hand was thrust round the stony angle and searched for a projection, and as Dale eagerly grasped the humid palm, Saxe glided round and then followed him into the corner, beneath which the water roared and churned itself into foam, passed this in safety, and once more they crept on, thinking now only of getting out into the daylight and following the stream in the hope of finding poor Melchior’s remains.

The same thoughts occurred to both of them: suppose the poor fellow was beyond their reach, swept right away into the depths of some lake miles away—what were they to do? Retrace their steps to the mouth of the gorge, where their provision was left, or try to find their way somehow over the mountains? It would be a fearful task, ignorant of their way, faint from want of food, weak from exhaustion. It was now for the first time that Saxe realised how terrible the mountains were, and how easily a person might be lost, or meet with a mishap that would mean laming, perhaps death.

Then their thoughts of self gave place again to those relating to their poor guide.

“We must find him!” Saxe cried involuntarily, and so loudly that Dale turned and looked back at him wildly, for the thoughts had been exactly his own.

“Yes,” he said, his voice muffled by the roar of the waters; “we must find him. The place is not so very large, after all. Wait till we get out: I can’t talk here.”

For the roar had seemed to increase and the darkness to grow deeper for the next few yards. The water, too, was nearer, the path having a steep incline downward, with the natural result that the ledge was dripping with moisture, and from time to time some wave would strike the opposite wall with a heavy slap, and the spray fly in quite a gust, as of rain, full in their faces.

“It can’t be much farther,” thought Saxe, as he went cautiously down the incline, to see that the rock on his right now bent right over, and had caused the darkness. Then the path bent to the left, struck off to the right again, and was now down within three or four feet of the water, after which there was a fresh corner to be turned, where the wave that rose up seemed somehow illuminated; but they were quite close up, with the water almost running over the path, before they fully grasped that the light came from the side, bringing with it some hope, even if it were little; and at the same time Saxe felt the possibility of going back the same way now that the full extent of the danger could be grasped.

“Poor Melchior!” he muttered—“it must have been impossible for him to have led the mule through here;” and as he thought, this, the full light of day came streaming in, making Dale, a few yards before him, stand out like a silhouette clearly cut in black, while for a hundred yards the water now ran, rapidly widening and growing less like a torrent, till right away he could see it flowing smoothly between the towering rocks that were piled-up on either side of its bed.

Chapter Ten.

Being used to it.

Dale hurried on, with Saxe close behind him, till they were out of the gloomy schlucht, and scrambling over the rocks by the rapidly widening stream, whose waters had now grown turbid, and were bearing great patches of grey froth upon their surface.

They could see for a couple of hundred yards down the narrow way along which the stream ran; then it bore off to the right and was hidden; and to command a better view, as they eagerly searched the surface for some trace of Melchior, they mounted the tumbled-together rocks, and saw that they were at the head of a widening valley, surrounded by nearly level mountains, forming an oval, which looked like the bed of an ancient lake similar to the one they had lately left. But, in place of deep water, there was a plain of thinly scattered grass growing amongst fragments of rock that looked as if they had been swept down from the mountains round, and serpentining through the level was the swift river, whose course they could trace till it passed through a narrow gap at the far end.

Saxe climbed the higher, and balanced himself on the top of a rough block, which rocked slightly, like a Cornish logan, as he stood shading his eyes and following the course of the stream amongst the huge boulders which often hid it from view; while from his lower position Dale searched the windings nearer to them, hoping to see that which they sought stranded somewhere among the stones.

But they looked in vain.

“Can you see anything, Saxe?”

“No,” replied the boy in a despondent tone: “can you, sir!”

“Nothing. We must follow the stream down. I dare say we shall find some shallows lower down. Come along quickly.”

He began to descend.

“We must find him, Saxe, and then make the best of our way back for help. Poor fellow! I’d freely give all I possess to see him safe and sound.”

“Then hurrah! Come up here, sir. Look! look!”

“What! you don’t mean? Saxe, boy—speak!” cried Dale excitedly, trying to mount beside him.

“Hi! don’t! You’ll have me overboard!” shouted the boy, as the great block of stone rocked to such an extent that he nearly came down headlong. “Now, steady! Give me your hand.”

The rock was kept in position now by the pressure on one side, but as Dale sprang up to Saxe’s side, it began to rise again, and they had hard work to preserve their balance, as they stood straining their eyes to where they could see a man mounted upon some animal riding slowly across the green level lying in a loop of the stream.

“No, no,” said Dale sadly, “that cannot be Melchior. It is some herdsman; but we’ll go and meet him and get his help.”

“It is Melchior,” said Saxe decidedly.

“I would to Heaven it were, Saxe! Impossible! That man is a mile away. Distances are deceptive.”

“I don’t care if he’s a hundred miles away,” cried Saxe; “it’s old Melk, and he’s safe.”

“You are deceiving yourself, boy.”

“I’m not, sir. I’m sure of it; and he’s all right. You see!”

He snatched off his hat, and began to wave it, bursting out at the same time into the most awful parody of a Swiss jodel that ever startled the mountains, and made them echo back the wild, weird sounds.

“There! Look!” cried Saxe excitedly, as the mounted man took off his hat, waved it in the air, and there floated toward them, faintly heard but beautifully musical, the familiar jodel they had heard before. Then, as it ceased, it was repeated from the rocks to the right, far louder, and made more musical by the reaction nearer at hand.

“There!” cried Saxe, “what did I tell you?” and he capered about on the moving rock, waving his hat and shouting again, “I—o—a—a—de—ah—diah—diah— Oh! Murder!”

Dale was in the act of saying, “Take care!” when the mass of stone careened over, and Saxe was compelled to take a flying leap downward on to another piece, off which he staggered ten feet lower, to come down with a crash.

“Hurt yourself!” cried Dale anxiously.

“Hurt myself, sir!” said Saxe reproachfully, as he scrambled up slowly: “just you try it and see. Oh my!” he continued rubbing himself, “ain’t these stones hard!”

“Here,—give me your hand.”

“Thankye. It’s all right, only a bruise or two. I don’t mind, now old Melk’s safe.”

“Don’t deceive yourself, Saxe,” said Dale sadly.

“What! Didn’t you hear him jodel?”

“Yes, and you may hear every Swiss mountaineer we meet do that. You hailed him, and the man answered, and he is coming toward us,” continued Dale, straining his eyes again to watch the slowly approaching figure. “Bah! How absurd! I’m as bad as the sailor who put his cutlass into his left hand, so that he could have his right free to knock an enemy down with his fist.”

As he spoke, he dragged at the strap across his breast, took a little field-glass from the case, adjusted the focus, and levelled it at the distant figure.

“Hurrah, Saxe, you’re right!” he cried, lowering the glass, seizing the boy’s hand and wringing it vigorously.

“Hurrah! it is,” cried Saxe; “I knew it. I could tell by the twist of that jolly old mule’s head. I say, you owe me all you’ve got, Mr Dale. When are you going to pay?”

“When you ask me as if you meant it, boy.”

“Ah, then! I can’t ask!” cried Saxe. “Let’s have a look at Melk.”

He took the glass extended to him, rested his back against a block of stone, and carefully examined the figure.

“I say, isn’t he wet! You can see his clothes sticking to him. But, Mr Dale, what a swim he must have had. Ah—ae—e—oh—diah—di—ah—diah—”

“Don’t, boy, for goodness’ sake!” cried Dale, clapping his hand over Saxe’s lips. “If Gros hears that, he’ll take fright and bolt.”

“What, at my cry? That’s jodelling I’m learning.”

“Then practise your next lesson in a cornfield, when we get home. Any farmer would give you an engagement to keep off the crows.”

“Oh, I say, Mr Dale!” cried Saxe, “you are too bad. Just you try whether you can do it any better.”

“No, thanks,” said Dale, laughing: “I am full of desire to learn all I can, but I think I shall make an exception with regard to the jodel. Come along down, and let’s meet him.”

They descended the rock so as to get on to the rugged plain; and ten minutes after Melchior rode up on his bare-backed mule, soaking wet, and with the mule steaming; but otherwise, as far as they could see, neither was any the worse for the late adventure.

“Melk, old chap!” cried Saxe, seizing one hand.

“Melchior, my good fellow!” cried Dale, seizing the other; “I thought we’d lost you.”

The guide’s sombre face lit up, and his eyes looked moist as he returned the friendly grasp.

“Thank you, herrs,” he said warmly, “thank you.”

“But you are hurt,” cried Dale.

“I thank you, no, herr; not much.”

“But tell us,” cried Saxe, who had been scanning him all the time, “where are you hurt?”

“Hurt? I am not hurt,” said the guide quietly. “A few bruises and a lump on my head—that is all.”

“But the mule,—he struck you down with his hoofs.”

“It was more of a push, herr.”

“But tell us—we thought you were drowned in that awful place.”

“Yes, it was bad,” said Melchior, quite calmly. “It is so swift and the water so full of air that you cannot swim, and one was turned about so and rolled over, but I held on to Gros here, and it did not take long before we were through.”

“But your breath? Did you keep on the surface?” said Dale.

“I don’t know, herr. It was all darkness and confusion; but we were rolled up against the rock sometimes, and I managed to get my breath. Then we were driven on and on very fast. You see the rock is worn so smooth, there is nothing against which you can catch. The stones swept down by the water have worn that all away, and one goes quite quick, holding one’s breath, till one is shot out as if from a gun, and the water gets smoother. Then we got our breath easily, and Gros here began to swim while I held on by his mane; but we had to go a long way down before there was a place for the mule to land.”

“But do you mean to tell me,” cried Dale, “that you both came through that horrible place and are none the worse for it?”

The guide smiled.

“Well, herr,” he said, “I am very wet, and there were moments when I thought I could not hold my breath any longer, but there are no bones broken and no cuts or grazes.”

“Then there is nothing else the matter with you?” cried Saxe.

“Well, yes, herr; I am very hungry.”

“Hungry!” cried Saxe excitedly. “Yes, of course: I’d forgotten; so am I. Here, Mr Dale, let you and me go and get the basket whilst he dries himself in the sun.”

“No, no,” cried Melchior firmly, “neither of you could carry that pannier through the schlucht. I am wet, and it will do me good to get warm carrying the load.”

“No, Melchior, it would not be right,” said Dale. “I will go.”

“No, herr,” said Melchior firmly; “as your guide I should be disgracing myself by letting you run the risk. I have been used from a child to carry loads upon my back along ledges and places where an Englishman would shrink from going. I am not hurt or tired: it is my duty; so with all respect to you I will go.”

“But—”

“Answer me, herr, as a gentleman,” cried Melchior warmly: “do you feel that you could safely carry that pannier through the schlucht?”

“I should try to,” said Dale.

“Ah! that shows weakness: you cannot say that you would.”

They went back to a spot where there was a rich patch of grass, and here the guide alighted and took off the mule’s bridle to turn it loose, when it immediately proved that nothing was the matter in its direction by having a good roll in the grass and then proceeding to crop it with the best of appetites.

“Light your pipe, herr,” said Melchior, smiling: “I dare say I shall be back before you have got through it twice;” and springing from rock to rock, he soon reached the ledge nearly flush with the water, and they watched him enter the low narrow long chasm till his figure grew dim in the gloom; and a minute later had disappeared.

“I don’t feel comfortable at letting him go, Saxe,” said Dale.

“I do, sir,” began Saxe.

“Stop!” cried Dale.

“What’s the matter, sir?” cried Saxe, wondering.

“This, my boy! Never mind the sir while we are out here as companions. We are friends and helpmates—brothers if you like. Now what were you going to say?”

“Oh! only that I don’t feel uneasy about him. A man who could tumble into the water at the other end and be shot through like a pellet from a popgun, can’t come to any harm. I say, how long do you think he’ll be?”

“Nearly an hour,” replied Dale.

“Nearly an hour,” cried Saxe dolefully—“an hour to wait before we can get anything to eat. Ah! you lucky beggar,” he continued, apostrophising the mule, “you’ve got plenty, and are enjoying it, while I’ve got none. But I mean to—”

“Here! what are you going to do?” cried Dale.

“Climb down to the water’s edge and have a good drink. I’m as thirsty as a fish.”

“Then we must look out for a spring. You can’t drink that water.”

“Can’t drink it?” cried Saxe; “why, I’m so thirsty, I could drink anything.”

“Not that. Why, it’s full of stone and snow. Bad as bad can be. Come along, and let’s see what we can find. It will be better than doing nothing; and I’m thirsty too. Let’s try that little rift in the mountain. It looks the sort of place for a rivulet to come sparkling down amongst moss and ferns. Let’s try.”

He led the way toward the rift, which looked like the beginning of a similar chasm to that through which they had so lately come, Saxe following closely behind, while the mule went on crop, crop at the thin fine grass, with his coat rapidly drying in the hot afternoon sun.

Chapter Eleven.

A Glissade is not all Bliss.

It took a long time to find that bubbling spring; but they discovered it at last, coming down from hundreds of feet above their heads, over vivid green moss and under fern fronds, to form into tiny pools in the crevices of the rocks; and from one of these they drank with avidity long cooling draughts of the sparkling water dipped out in the flask cup, and then they turned to go.

As they walked back, it was to find that Melchior had just returned with the pannier, and had been spreading part of his clothes in the sun to dry.

“We have been after water,” said Dale.

“Ah! you found it all right, then?” said the guide eagerly.

“Yes; but it is a good way off, and I only had my flask with me.”

“Good way off!” said Melchior. “Why, it is close here.”

“But we could not drink that,” cried Saxe.

“Why? It is beautiful water. I will show you.”

He took a tin from the basket as he spoke.

“Well, you can drink it if you like,” said Saxe. “I wouldn’t have minded it out of the lake; but this thick stuff—why, it’s horrid.”

“From the lake? No, not good,” said the guide. “Bad for the throat. See here!”

He took a dozen steps toward the schlucht, and passed round a huge mass of rock, behind which a pure fount of water gushed out from a rift, at whose foot Gros was drinking where the water ran down to join the river.

“Some people say that they like to travel without a guide,” said Dale quietly.

“Yes, herr; there are plenty who come here, and think they know in a day all that it has taken me more than twenty years to learn.”

He led the way back to the basket, and busily spread their homely dinner on a smooth block of stone, Saxe vowing that he had never eaten such bread and cheese before.

When the meal was ended, and the basket once more placed on the mule’s back, Dale looked inquiringly at the guide.

“Over yonder, herr,” he said, pointing at the wall of rock away to their left.

“But we can’t get up there with the mule,” cried Saxe: “we’re not flies.”

“Wait and see, herr,” replied Melchior. “We shall mount yonder, and then go right over the col between those two peaks. There is the valley on the other side that we are seeking, and there we must rest for the night.”

“Then the sooner we start the better,” said Dale, “for the day is getting on.”

“Yes, herr; and the mists come down into the col where the snow lies. Are you ready?”

The answer was in the affirmative, and the guide started straight for the wall of rock, which still looked quite impassable as they drew near, till Melchior turned sharply round into a cleft, which looked as if a huge piece had been cut down from the mountain, and left guile separate and still standing.

Up this cleft they mounted steadily, till, to Saxe’s surprise, he found himself high above the mighty wall which shut in the valley, and only now, as it were, at the foot of the mountains, which rose up fold beyond fold, apparently endless, and for the most part snow-capped, with snow lying deeply in the hollows, and filling up the narrow col or depression between the peaks where they were to pass.

Saxe looked up at the snow, and then at Dale, who also seemed to have his doubts.

“Can we pass that before dark?” he said.

“Yes, herr. Trust me: I know.”

“But how far have we to go on the other side? If it is very far, had we not better camp here for the night?”

“When we reach the summit of the col, herr, our task is done. There is a deep hollow, well sheltered, and where the snow never falls.”

“I leave myself in your hands, Melchior,” said Dale. “Go on.”

The climb over the rugged ground was very laborious, but there was a brisk freshness in the air which kept fatigue at a distance, and they toiled on up and up, with the sloping rays of the sun making the snow above them indescribably beautiful.

“Yes,” said Saxe, “but I’m getting too tired and out of breath to enjoy it now. I’ll do that to-morrow.”

“The young herr shall come and see the sun rise on the snow passes,” said Melchior. “I will call him.”

“No, don’t, please,” said Saxe. “I shall want two days’ sleep after this.”

The guide laughed, patted Gros, who trudged on as fresh apparently as ever, till they reached the rough culm of a ridge, to look down at once on the snow slope to which they had to descend for a couple of hundred feet, the ridge they were on acting as a buttress to keep the snow from gliding down into the valley.

“Is that the last?” asked Saxe.

“Yes, herr. One hour’s quiet, steady work. Half an hour after, the fire will be burning and the kettle boiling for our tea.”

“What! up there in that snow!”

“No, herr: we shall have descended into the warm shelter of which I spoke.”

They soon reached the foot of the snow, which rose up in one broad smooth sheet, pure and white beyond anything existing lower down, and as, now thoroughly tired, Saxe gazed up at the beautiful curve descending from the mountains on either side, it seemed to be a tremendous way up.

“The snow is pretty hard,” said Melchior. “Use my steps.”

He clapped the mule on the haunch, and the sturdy beast set off at once up the laborious ascent, with its hoofs sinking in deeply, as instinctively it sloped off to the right instead of breasting the ascent at once.

“But what about the rope, Melchior?” said Dale sharply.

“There is no need for a rope here, herr. This snow lies on the solid rock, and every crevice and hollow is full, with the snow harder and more strong the deeper we go.”

“Of course: I had forgotten. This is not a glacier. Come, Saxe! Tired?”

“Wait till I get to the top,” was the reply; and they climbed on, with the snow gradually changing colour as it was bathed in the evening sunshine, till they seemed to be tramping up and up over grains of gold, which went rushing back as Gros plunged his way upward, turning from time to time, and retracing his steps at an angle, thus forming a zigzag as regular as if it had been marked out for him at starting.

“Seems to grow as one climbs,” grumbled Saxe at last, as he grew too tired to admire the glorious prospect of gilded peaks which kept on opening out at every turn.

“But it does not,” replied Dale. “Come: do your best! It’s splendid practice for your muscles and wind. You are out of breath now, but a week or two hence you will think nothing of a slope like this; and to-morrow I am thinking of ascending that peak, if you like to come.”

“Which?” cried Saxe.

“That to the right, where the rock is clear on one side and it is all snow on the other.”

“Yes, I see.”

“It is not one of the high peaks, but the rocks look attractive, and it will be practice before I try something big. But you’ll be too much done up with to-day’s work.”

Saxe frowned, and they went on in silence for a time, till, at one of the turns made by the mule, Dale paused.

“Like a rest?” he said.

“No,” replied Saxe; “we may as well get to the top first.”

Dale smiled to himself.

“He has plenty of spirit,” he muttered; and he watched Saxe toiling on, with his feet sinking in the snow at every step, and how he never once glanced up at the top of the col for which they were making; but he gave a start and his face lit up as Melchior suddenly uttered his peculiar jodel.

“The top of the col,” he cried; and, as the others joined him where he stood, with his arm over the mule’s neck, he said, “Would the herrs like me to tell them the names of the different peaks?”

“Yes, after tea,” said Saxe, laughing. “But, I say, I thought this was a sharp ridge, like the roof of a church, and that we should go down directly off the snow.”

“Patience, herr,” said Melchior. “Come along, then. It is colder up here. See how low the sun is, and feel how hard the snow becomes.”

Saxe glanced at the great ruddy glow in the west, and saw how the different peaks had flashed up into brilliant light; he noted, too, that if he trod lightly, his feet hardly went through the crust on the snow.

“Why, it’s beginning to freeze!” he cried suddenly.

“Yes, herr; on this side it is freezing hard. On the other side it will be soft yet. That is the south.”

They went on for three or four hundred yards, over what seemed to be a level plain of snow, but which they knew from what they had seen below, hung in a curve from the dazzling snow peaks on either hand, and to be gracefully rounded south and north.

So gradual was the descent that nothing was visible of the valley for which they were making; and Saxe was just about to attack the guide about his declaration respecting the short time after reaching the top of the col before they would be at tea, when Melchior suddenly stopped, and as Saxe joined him where he stood, the snow ran down suddenly, steeply, and with a beautiful curve into a tiny valley, whose floor was green, with a silver rivulet winding through it, and several clumps of dwarfed pines turning it into quite a park.

“There is our resting-place, herr,” he said, “with a perfect bit of snow for a glissade.”

“What, slide down the snow!” cried Saxe. “To be sure! Shall I be able to stop myself! I don’t want to go rolling down into that water like a ball.”

“Come behind me,” said Dale quietly; “I’ll show you how. Stand up as I do, and hold your alpenstock behind you like this. Some people say it is wrong, but I always get on so.”

He pressed his alpenstock into the snow behind him, holding it under his left arm with both hands; and leaning back upon it, he waited till Saxe had imitated him exactly.

“If you find you are going down too fast, lean back more, so as to drive your pike down into the snow. Try and keep your balance. If you go over, hold on to your alpenstock and try to stop yourself the best way you can. Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then off! Steady, slowly, as you can. There’s no hurry.”

“Well, I don’t want to hurry,” muttered Saxe, as he began to glide down the beautiful sloping curve, with the crisp large-grained snow hissing and flying down before him. It was glorious. He felt as if he were flying; then as if he were having a splendid skate without the slightest exertion. The bottom of the valley began to fly up to meet him, and he had some slight consciousness of Dale being close before or behind him, he could not tell which, for his mind was concentrated upon his descent, which grew more and more rapid and delightful. Every sense of weariness was gone, and he was just thinking of lammergeyers in their flight, when he heard his companions shouting to him, just as he lost his balance and came down on his side. Then, he lost his alpenstock and directly after his temper, as he found he was rolling down head first till he gave himself a tremendous wrench, and contrived to get his feet foremost, with his heels down in the snow, and by degrees rose into a sitting position, finishing his descent more deliberately, for fortunately the slope grew less and less, till he was brought up by the stones at the foot, and able to look up.

“Hurt?” cried Dale, who came down to him directly after.