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.
"Haven't had time to see yet," said Saxe gruffly. "Here are my trousers
got right up my legs."
"No skin off your knuckles?"
"I think not," said Saxe. "Are you all right? But what did it?"
"You."
"No. There must have been something sticking up out of the enow to
upset me: a piece of rock, I think."
"You'll think differently after a few more tries," said Dale, laughing;
and returned to see how Melchior was getting down with the mule.
They were coming far more gently, the mule having tucked its hind legs
close beneath it, and slid steadily down, while by means of his ice-axe
Melchior regulated his pace to that of the quadruped, till they, too,
were at the bottom.
"Saxe thinks there was a piece of rock sticking out of the snow ready to
upset him," cried Dale.
"Hush! Don't make him laugh at a fellow," said the boy hurriedly.
Melchior smiled.
"It was his first lesson," he said quietly. "Now, there is a clump of
rocks between those two patches of pines, and water and wood in
abundance. Will you have the fire there?"
Half an hour after they were all seated round a crackling fire, well
sheltered on all sides, and with the rock projecting far over their
heads in case of rain. The kettle was singing, the coffee ready, the
rest of the provisions spread, and the mule cropping the grass close by,
never once trying to leave the vicinity of his human companions.
An hour after the fire was out the stars shone brilliantly, and the
little party slept beneath their rugs on a couch of pine boughs as
soundly as in the most luxurious couch that had fallen to their lot.