The Silent Barrier

by Louis Tracy

  CHAPTER VIII

  SHADOWS

  "It is a glorious morning. If the weather holds, your first visit tothe real Alps should be memorable," said Bower.

  Helen had just descended the long flight of steps in front of thehotel. A tender purple light filled the valley. The nearer hills weresilhouetted boldly against a sky of primrose and pink; but the mistydepths where the lake lurked beneath the pines had not yet yieldedwholly to the triumph of the new day. The air had a cold life in itthat invigorated while it chilled. It resembled some _vin frappe_ ofrare vintage. Its fragrant vivacity was ready to burst forth at thefirst encouraging hint of a kindlier temperature.

  "Why that dubious clause as to the weather?" asked Helen, looking atthe golden shafts of sunlight on the topmost crags of Corvatsch andthe Piz della Margna. Those far off summits were so startlingly vividin outline that they seemed to be more accessible than the mistshrouded ravines cleaving their dun sides. It needed an effort of theimagination to correct the erring testimony of the eye.

  "The moods of the hills are variable, my lady,--femininely fickle, infact. There is a proverb that contrasts the wind with woman's mind;but the disillusioned male who framed it evidently possessed littleknowledge of weather changes in the high Alps, or else he----"

  "Did you beguile me out of my cozy room at six o'clock on a frostymorning to regale me with stale jibes at my sex?"

  "Perish the thought, Miss Wynton! My only intent was to explain thatthe ancient proverb maker, meaning to be rude, might have found abetter simile."

  "Meanwhile, I am so cold that the only mood left in my composition isone of impatience to be moving."

  "Well, I am ready."

  "But where is our guide?"

  "He has gone on in front with the porter."

  "Porter! What is the man carrying?"

  "The wherewithal to refresh ourselves when we reach the hut."

  "Oh," said Helen, "I had no idea that mountaineering was such abusiness. I thought the essentials were a packet of sandwiches and aflask."

  "You will please not be flippant. Climbing is serious work. And youmust moderate your pace. If you walk at that rate from here to Forno,you will be very, very ill before you reach the hut."

  "Ill! How absurd!"

  "Not only absurd but disagreeable,--far worse than crossing theChannel. Even old hands like me are not free from mountain sickness,though it seizes us at higher altitudes than we shall reach to-day. Inthe case of a novice, anything in the nature of hurrying during theoutward journey is an unfailing factor."

  They were crossing the golf links, and the smooth path was tempting toa good walker. Helen smiled as she accommodated herself to Bower'sslower stride. Though the man might possess experience, the woman hadthe advantage of youth, the unattainable, and this wonderful hourafter dawn was stirring its ichor in her veins.

  "I suppose that is what Stampa meant when he took 'Slow and Sure' forhis motto," she said.

  "Stampa! Who is Stampa?"

  There was a sudden rasp of iron in his voice. As a rule Bower spokewith a cultivated languor that almost veiled the staccato accents ofthe man of affairs. Helen was so surprised by this unwarranted clangof anger that she looked at him with wide open eyes.

  "He is the driver I told you of, the man who took the wheel off mycarriage during the journey from St. Moritz," she explained.

  "Oh, of course. How stupid of me to forget! But, by the way, did youmention his name?"

  "No, I think not. Someone interrupted me. Mr. Dunston came and spoketo you----"

  He laughed gayly and drew in deep breaths of the keen air. He wascarrying his ice ax over his left shoulder. With his right hand hebrushed away a disturbing thought. "By Jove! yes! Dunston dragged meoff to open a bank at baccarat, and you will be glad to hear that Iwon five hundred pounds."

  "I am glad you won; but who lost so much money?"

  "Dunston dropped the greater part of it. Your American friend, Mr.Spencer, was rather inclined to brag of his prowess in that direction,it appears. He even went so far as to announce his willingness to playfor four figures; but he backed out of it."

  "Do you mean that Mr. Spencer wanted to stake a thousand pounds on asingle game at cards?"

  "Evidently he did not want to do it, but he talked about it."

  "Yet he impressed me as being a very clear-headed and sensible youngman," said Helen decisively.

  "Here, young lady, I must call you to account! In what category do youplace me, then?"

  "Oh, you are different. I disapprove of anyone playing for such highstakes; but I suppose you are used to it and can afford it, whereas aman who has his way to make in the world would be exceedingly foolishto do such a thing."

  "Pray, how did you come to measure the extent of Spencer's finances?"

  "Dear me! Did I say that?"

  "I am sorry. Of course, I had no wish to speak offensively. What Imean is that he may be quite as well able to run a big bank atbaccarat as I am."

  "He was telling me yesterday of his early struggles to gain a footingin some mining community in Colorado, and the impression his wordsleft on me was that he is still far from wealthy; that is, as oneunderstands the term. Here we are at the footpath. Shall we follow itand scramble up out of the ravine, or do you prefer the carriageroad?"

  "The footpath, please. But before we drop the subject of cards, whichis unquestionably out of place on a morning like this, let me say thatperhaps I have done the American an injustice. Dunston is given toexaggeration. He has so little control over his face that it is rankrobbery to bet with him. Such a man is apt to run to extremes. It maybe that Spencer was only talking through his hat, as they say in NewYork."

  Helen had the best of reasons for rejecting this version of the story.Her perceptive faculties, always well developed, were strung to hightension in Maloja. The social pinpricks inflicted there had renderedher more alert, more cautious, than was her wont. She was quite sure,for instance, judging from a number of slight indications, thatSpencer was deliberately avoiding any opportunity of making Bower'sacquaintance. More than once, when an introduction seemed to beimminent, the American effaced himself. Other men in the hotel werenot like that--they rather sought the great man's company. Shewondered if Bower had noticed it. Despite his candid, almost generous,disclaimer of motive, there was an undercurrent of hostility in hiswords that suggested a feeling of pique. She climbed the rocky path insilence until Bower spoke again.

  "How do the boots go?" he asked.

  "Splendidly, thanks. It was exceedingly kind of you to take suchtrouble about them. I had no idea one had to wear such heavy nails,and that tip of yours about the extra stockings is excellent."

  "You will acknowledge the benefit most during the descent. I haveknown people become absolutely lame on the home journey throughwearing boots only just large enough for ordinary walking. As for theclamping of the nails over the edges of the soles, the sharp stonesrender that imperative. When you have crossed a moraine or two, and apeculiarly nasty _geroell_ that exists beyond the hut, if we have timeto make an easy ascent, you will understand the need of extra strongfootwear."

  Helen favored him with a shy smile. "Long hours of reading haverevealed the nature of a moraine," she said; "but, please, what is a_geroell_?"

  "A slope of loose stones. Let me see, what do they call it inScotland and Cumberland? Ah, yes, a scree. On the French side of theAlps the same thing is known as a _casse_."

  "How well you know this country and its ways! Have you climbed many ofthe well known peaks?"

  "Some years ago I scored my century beyond twelve thousand feet. Thatis pretty fair for an amateur."

  "Have you done the Matterhorn?"

  "Yes, four times. Once I followed Tyndall's example, and converted thesummit into a pass between Switzerland and Italy."

  "How delightful! I suppose you have met many of the famous guides?"

  He laughed pleasantly. "One does not attempt the Cervin or theJungfrau without the best men, and in my tim
e there were not twenty,all told. I had a long talk with our present guide last night, andfound I had used many a track he had only seen from the valley."

  "Then----"

  A loud toot on a cowhorn close at hand interrupted her. The artist wasa small boy. He appeared to be waiting expectantly on a hillock forsomeone who came not.

  "Is that a signal?" she asked.

  "Yes. He is a _gaumer_, or cowherd,--another word for your Alpinevocabulary,--the burgher whose cattle he will drive to the pasture hasprobably arranged to meet him here."

  Bower was always an interesting and well informed companion. Launchednow into a congenial topic, he gave Helen a thoroughly entertaininglecture on the customs of a Swiss commune. He pointed out thesuccessive tiers of pastures, told her their names and seasons of use,and even hummed some verses of the cow songs, or _Kuh-reihen_, whichthe men sing to the cattle, addressing each animal by name.

  An hour passed pleasantly in this manner. Their guide, a man namedJosef Barth, and the porter, who answered to "Karl," awaited them atthe milk chalet by the side of Lake Cavloccio. Bower, evidentlyaccustomed to the leadership of expeditions of this sort, tested theirice axes and examined the ropes slung to Barth's rucksack.

  "The Forno is a glacier _de luxe_," he explained to Helen; "but it isalways advisable to make sure that your appliances are in good order.That _pickel_ you are carrying was made by the best blacksmith inGrindelwald, and you can depend on its soundness; but these men are sofamiliar with their surroundings that they often provide themselveswith frayed ropes and damaged axes."

  "In addition to my boots, therefore, I am indebted to you for aspecial brand of ice ax," she cried.

  "Your gratitude now is as nothing to the ecstasy you will display whenKarl unpacks his load," he answered lightly. "Now, Miss Wynton, _enroute_! You know the path to the glacier already, don't you?"

  "I have been to its foot twice."

  "Then you go in front. There is no room to walk two abreast. Before wetackle the ice we will call a halt for refreshments."

  From that point till the glacier was reached the climb was laboriouslysimple. There was no difficulty and not the slightest risk, even for achild; but the heavy gradient and the rarefied air made it almostimpossible to sustain a conversation unless the speakers dawdled.Helen often found herself many yards in advance of the others. Shesimply could not help breasting the steeper portions of the track. Shewas drawn forward by an intense eagerness to begin the real businessof the day. Bower did not seek to restrain her. He thought her highspirits admirable, and his gaze dwelt appreciatively on her gracefulpoise as she stopped on the crest of some small ravine and looked backat the plodders beneath. Attractive at all times, she was bewitchingthat morning to a man who prided himself on his athletic tastes. Shewore a white knitted jersey and a short skirt, a costume seeminglydevised to reveal the lines of a slender waist and supple limbs. Awhite Tam o' Shanter was tied firmly over her glossy brown hair with asilk motor veil, and the stout boots which she had surveyed soruefully when Bower brought them to her on the previous evening afterinterviewing the village shoemaker, were by no means so cumbrous inuse as her unaccustomed eyes had deemed them. Even the phlegmaticguide was stirred to gruff appreciation when he saw her vault on to alarge flat boulder in order to examine an iron cross that surmountedit.

  "_Ach, Gott!_" he grunted, "that Englishwoman is as surefooted as achamois."

  But Helen had found a name and a date on a triangular strip of metalattached to the cross. "Why has this memorial been placed here?" sheasked. Bower appealed to Barth; but he shook his head. Karl gavedetails.

  "A man fell on the Cima del Largo. They carried him here, and he diedon that rock."

  "Poor fellow!" Some of the joyous light left Helen's face. She hadpassed the cross before, and had regarded it as one of the votiveofferings so common by the wayside in Catholic countries, knowing thatin this part of Switzerland the Italian element predominated among thepeasants.

  "We get a fine view of the Cima del Largo from the _cabane_," saidBower unconcernedly.

  Helen picked a little blue flower that nestled at the base of therock. She pinned it to her jersey without comment. Sometimes thecallousness of a man was helpful, and the shadow of a bygone tragedywas out of keeping with the glow of this delightful valley.

  The curving mass of the glacier was now clearly visible. It lookedlike some marble staircase meant to be trodden only by immortals. Everbroadening and ascending until it filled the whole width of the riftbetween the hills, it seemed to mount upward to infinity. The sidelongrays of the sun, peeping over the shoulders of Forno and Roseg, tintedthe great ice river with a sapphire blue, while its higher reachesglistened as though studded with gigantic diamonds. Near at hand,where the Orlegna rushed noisily from thraldom, the broken surface wassomber and repellent. In color a dull gray, owing to the accumulationof winter debris and summer dust, it had the aspect of decay anddeath; it was jagged and gaunt and haggard; the far flung piles of thewhite moraine imposed a stony barrier against its farther progress.But that unpleasing glimpse of disruption was quickly dispelled by themagnificent volume and virgin purity of the glacier as a whole. Helentried to imagine herself two miles distant, a tiny speck on the greatfloor of the pass. That was the only way to grasp its stupendous size,though she knew that it mounted through five miles of rock strewnravine before it touched the precipitous saddle along which runs theborder line between Italy and Switzerland.

  Karl's sigh of relief as he deposited his heavy load on a tablelikeboulder brought Helen back from the land of dreams. To this sturdypeasant the wondrous Forno merely represented a day's hard work, at anagreed sum of ten francs for carrying nearly half a hundredweight, anda liberal _pour-boire_ if the voyageurs were satisfied.

  Sandwiches and a glass of wine, diluted with water brought by theguide from a neighboring rill,--glacier water being used only as alast resource,--were delectable after a steady two hours' walk. Theearly morning meal of coffee and a roll had lost some of its flavorwhen consumed apparently in the middle of the night, and Helen wasready now for her breakfast. While they were eating, Bower and JosefBarth cast glances at some wisps of cloud drifting slowly over thecrests of the southern hills. Nothing was said. The guide read hispatron's wishes correctly. Unless some cause far more imperative thana slight mist intervened, the day's programme must not be abandoned.So there was no loitering. The sun was almost in the valley, and theglacier must be crossed before the work of the night's frost wasundone.

  When they stepped from the moraine on to the ice Barth led, Helenfollowed, Bower came next, with Karl in the rear.

  If it had not been for the crisp crunching sound of the hobnails amidthe loose fragments on the surface, and the ring of the _pickel's_steel-shod butt on the solid mass beneath, Helen might have fanciedthat she was walking up an easy rock-covered slope. Any delusion onthat point, however, was promptly dispelled by a glimpse of a narrowcrevasse that split the foot of the glacier lengthwise.

  She peered into its sea-green depths awesomely. It resembled atoothless mouth gaping slowly open, ready enough to swallow her, buttoo inert to put forth the necessary effort. And the thought remindedher of something. She halted and turned to Bower.

  "Ought we not to be roped?" she asked.

  He laughed, with the quiet confidence of the expert mountaineer."Why?" he cried. "The way is clear. One does not walk into a crevassewith one's eyes open."

  "But Stampa told me that I should refuse to advance a yard on ice ordifficult rock without being roped."

  "Stampa, your cab driver?"

  There was no reason that she could fathom why her elderly friend'sname should be repeated with such scornful emphasis.

  "Ah, yes. He is that because he is lame," she protested. "But he wasone of the most famous guides in Zermatt years ago."

  She swung round and appealed to Barth, who was wondering why hisemployers were stopping before they had climbed twenty feet. "Are youfrom Zermatt?" she demanded.

  "N
o, _fraeulein_--from Pontresina. Zermatt is a long way from here."

  "But you know some of the Zermatt men, I suppose? Have you ever heardof Christian Stampa?"

  "Most certainly, _fraeulein_. My father helped him to build the firsthut on the Hoernli Ridge."

  "Old Stampa!" chimed in Karl from beneath. "It will be long ere he isforgotten. I was one of four who carried him down from Corvatsch toSils-Maria the day after he fell. He was making the descent bynight,--a mad thing to do,--and there was murder in his heart, theysaid. But I never believed it. We shared a bottle of Monte Pulcianoonly yesterday, just for the sake of old times, and he was as merry asHans von Rippach himself."

  Bower was stooping, so Helen could not see his face. He seemed to befumbling with a boot lace.

  "You hear, Mr. Bower?" she cried. "I am quoting no mean authority."

  He did not answer. He had untied the lace and was readjusting it. Thegirl realized that to a man of his portly build his present attitudewas not conducive to speech. It had an additional effect which did notsuggest itself to her. The effort thus demanded from heart and lungsmight bring back the blood to a face blanched by a deadly fear.

  Karl was stocked with reminiscences of Stampa. "I remember the timewhen people said Christian was the best man in the Bernina," he said."He would never go back to the Valais after his daughter died. It wasa strange thing that he should come to grief on a cowherd's track likethat over Corvatsch. But Etta's affair----"

  "_Schweige!_" snarled Bower, straightening himself suddenly. His darkeyes shot such a gleam of lambent fury at the porter that the man'sjaw fell. The words were frozen on his lips. He could not have beenstricken dumb more effectually had he come face to face with one ofthe horrific sprites described in the folklore of the hills.

  Helen was surprised. What had poor Karl done that he should be biddenso fiercely to hold his tongue? Then she thought that Bower must haverecalled Stampa's history, and feared that perhaps the outspokenpeasant might enter into a piquant account of some village scandal. Achambermaid in the hotel, questioned about Stampa, had told her thatthe daughter he loved so greatly had committed suicide. Really, sheought to be grateful to her companion for saving her from a passingembarrassment. But she had the tact not to drop the subject tooquickly.

  "If Barth and you agree that roping is unnecessary, of course Ihaven't a word to say in the matter," she volunteered. "It was ratherabsurd of me to mention it in the first instance."

  "No, you were right. I have never seen Stampa; but his name isfamiliar. It occurs in most Alpine records. Barth, fix the rope beforewe go farther. The _fraeulein_ wishes it."

  The rush of color induced by physical effort--effort of a tensity thatHelen was wholly unaware of--was ebbing now before a numbing terrorthat had come to stay. His face was drawn and livid. His voice had themetallic ring in it that the girl had detected once already that day.Again she experienced a sense of bewilderment that he should regard atrivial thing so seriously. She was not a child. The world of to-daypulsated with far too many stories of tragic passion that she shouldbe shielded so determinedly from any hint of an episode that doubtlesswrung the heart's core of this quiet valley one day in August sixteenyears ago. In some slight degree Bower's paroxysm of anger was areflection on her own good taste, for she had unwittingly given riseto it.

  Nevertheless, she felt indebted to him. To extricate both Bower andherself from an awkward situation she took a keen interest in Barth'smethod of adjusting the rope. The man did not show any amazement atBower's order. He was there to earn his fee. Had these mad Englishtold him to cut steps up the gentle slope in front he would haveobeyed without protest, though it was more than strange that this muchtraveled _voyageur_ should adopt such a needless precaution.

  As a matter of fact, under Barth's guidance, a blind cripple couldhave surmounted the first kilometer of the Forno glacier. The tracklay close to the left bank of the moraine. It curved slightly to theright and soon the exquisite panorama of Monte Roseg, the Cima diRosso, Monte Sissone, Piz Torrone, and the Castello group opened upbefore the climbers. Helen was enchanted. Twice she half turned toaddress some question to Bower; but on each occasion she happened tocatch him in the act of swallowing some brandy from a flask. Governedby an unaccountable timidity, she pretended not to notice hisactions, and diverted her words to Barth, who told her the names ofthe peaks and pointed to the junctions of minor ice fields with themain artery of the Forno.

  Bower did not utter a syllable until they struck out toward the centerof the glacier. A crevasse some ten feet in width and seeminglyhundreds of feet deep, barred the way; but a bridge of ice, coveredwith snow, offered safe transit. The snow carpet showed that a numberof climbers had passed quite recently in both directions. Even Helen,somewhat awed by the dimensions of the rift, understood that theexistence of this natural arch was as well recognized by Alpinists asWaterloo Bridge is known to dwellers on the south side of the Thames.

  "Now, Miss Wynton, you should experience your first real thrill," saidBower. "This bridge forms here every year at this season, and an armymight cross in safety. It is the genuine article, the first andstrongest of a series. Yet here you cross the Rubicon. A mixture ofmetaphors is allowable in high altitudes, you know."

  Helen, almost startled at first by the unaffected naturalness of hiswords, was unfeignedly relieved at finding him restored to the normal.Usually his supply of light-hearted badinage was unceasing. He knewexactly when and how to season it with more serious statements. It isthis rare quality that makes tolerable a long day's solitude _a deux_.

  She flourished her ice axe bravely. _Page 163_]

  "I am not Caesar's wife," she replied; "but for the credit of womankindin general I shall act as though I was above suspicion--ofnervousness."

  She did not look round. Barth was moving quickly, and she had nodesire to burden him with a drag on the rope. When she was in thecenter of the narrow causeway, a snow cornice in the lip of thecrevasse detached itself under the growing heat of the sun andshivered down into the green darkness. The incident brought her heartinto her mouth. It served as a reminder that this solid ice river wasreally in a state of constant change and movement.

  Bower laughed, with all his customary gayety of manner. "That came ata dramatic moment," he said. "Too bad it could not let you passwithout giving you a quake!"

  "I am not a bit afraid."

  "Ah, but I can read your thoughts. There is a bond of sympathy betweenus."

  "Hemp is a non-conductor."

  "You are willfully misunderstanding me," he retorted.

  "No. I honestly believed you felt the rope quiver a little."

  "Alas! it is the atmosphere. My compliments fall on idle ears."

  Barth interrupted this play of harmless chaff by jerking some remarkover his shoulder. "Looks like a _guxe_," he said gruffly.

  "Nonsense!" said Bower,--"a bank of mist. The sun will soon melt it."

  "It's a _guxe_, right enough," chimed in Karl, who had recovered hispower of speech. "That is why the boy was blowing his horn--to show hewas bringing the cattle home."

  "Well, then, push on. The sooner we are in the hut the better."

  "Please, what is a _guxe_?" asked Helen, when the men had nothing moreto say.

  "A word I would have wished to add later to your Alpine phrase book.It means a storm, a blizzard."

  "Should we not return at once in that event?"

  "What? Who said just now she was not afraid?"

  "But a storm in such a place!"

  "These fellows smell a _tourmente_ in every little cloud from thesouthwest. We may have some wind and a light snowfall, and that willbe an experience for you. Surely you can trust me not to run any realrisk?"

  "Oh, yes. I do, indeed. But I have read of people being caught inthese storms and suffering terribly."

  "Not on the Forno, I assure you. I don't wish to minimize the perilsof your first ascent; but it is only fair to say that this is anexhibition glacier. If it w
as nearer town you would find an orchestrain each amphitheater up there, with sideshows in every couloir.Jesting apart, you are absolutely safe with Barth and me, not tomention the irrepressible gentleman who carries our provisions."

  Helen was fully alive to the fact that a woman who joins amountaineering party should not impose her personal doubts on men whoare willing to go on. She flourished her ice ax bravely, and cried,"Excelsior!"

  In the next instant she regretted her choice of expression. The moralof Longfellow's poem might be admirable, but the fate of its hero wasunpleasantly topical. Again Bower laughed.

  "Ah!" he said. "Will you deny now that I am a first rate receiver ofwireless messages?"

  She had no breath left for a quip. Barth was hurrying, and the thinair was beginning to have its effect. When an unusually smooth stretchof ice permitted her to take her eyes from the track for a moment shelooked back to learn the cause of such haste. To her completeastonishment, the Maloja Pass and the hills beyond it were dissolvedin a thick mist. A monstrous cloud was sweeping up the Orlegna Valley.As yet, it was making for the Muretto Pass rather than the actualravine of the Forno; but a few wraiths of vapor were sailing highoverhead, and it needed no weatherwise native to predict that ere longthe glacier itself would be covered by that white pall. She glanced atBower.

  He smiled cheerfully. "It is nothing," he murmured.

  "I really don't care," she said. "One does not shirk an adventuremerely because it is disagreeable. The pity is that all this lovelysunshine must vanish."

  "It will reappear. You will be charmed with the novelty in an hour orless."

  "Is it far to the hut?"

  "Hardly twenty minutes at our present pace."

  A growl from Barth stopped their brief talk. Another huge crevasseyawned in front. There was an ice bridge, with snow, like others theyhad crossed; but this was a slender structure, and the leader stabbedit viciously with the butt of his ax before he ventured on it. Theothers kept the rope taut, and he crossed safely. They followed. AsHelen gained the further side she heard Bower's chuckle:

  "Another thrill!"

  "I am growing quite used to them," she said.

  "Well, it may help somewhat if I tell you that the temporary departureof the sun will cause this particular bridge to be ten times as strongwhen we return."

  "Attention!" cried Barth, taking a sharp turn to the left. The meaningof his warning was soon apparent. They had to descend a few feet ofrough ice, and Helen found, to her great relief it must be confessed,that they were approaching the lateral moraine. Already the sky wasovercast. The glacier had taken to itself a cold grayness that wasdisconcerting. The heavy mist fell on them with inconceivablerapidity. Shining peaks and towering precipices of naked rock wereswept out of sight each instant. The weather had changed with amagical speed. The mist advanced with the rush of an express train,and a strong wind sprang up as though it had burst through arestraining wall and was bent on overwhelming the daring mortals whowere penetrating its chosen territory.

  Somehow--anyhow--Helen scrambled on. She was obliged to keep eyes andmind intent on each step. Her chief object was to imitate Barth, topoise, and jump, and clamber with feet and hands exactly as he did. Atthis stage the rope was obviously a hindrance; but none of the mensuggested its removal, and Helen had enough to occupy her wits withouttroubling them by a question. Even in the stress of her own breathlessexertions she had room in her mind for a wondering pity for theheavily laden Karl. She marveled that anyone, be he strong as Samson,could carry such a load and not fall under it. Yet he was lumberingalong behind Bower with a clumsy agility that was almost supernaturalto her thinking. She was still unconscious of the fact that most ofher own struggles were due more to the rarefied air than to the realdifficulties of the route.

  At last, when she really thought she must cry out for a rest, when asteeper climb than any hitherto encountered had bereft her almost ofthe power to take another upward spring to the ledge of some enormousboulder, when her knees and ankles were sore and bruised, and theskin of her fingers was beginning to fray under her stout gloves, shefound herself standing on a comparatively level space formed of brokenstones. A rough wall, surmounted by a flat pitched roof, stared at herout of the mist. In the center of the wall a small, square, shutteredwindow suggested a habitation. Her head swam, and her eyes acheddreadfully; but she knew that this was the hut, and strove desperatelyto appear self possessed.

  "Accept my congratulations, Miss Wynton," said a low voice at her ear."Not one woman in a thousand would have gone through that lasthalf-hour without a murmur. You are no longer a novice. Allow me topresent you with the freedom of the Alps. This is one of the manychateaux at your disposal."

  A wild swirl of sleet lashed them venomously. This first whip of thegale seemed to have the spitefulness of disappointed rage.

  Helen felt her arm grasped. Bower led her to a doorway cunninglydisposed out of the path of the dreaded southwest wind. At thatinstant all the woman in her recognized that the man was big, andstrong, and self reliant, and that it was good to have him near,shouting reassuring words that were whirled across the rock-crownedglacier by the violence of the tempest.