The Crystal Hunters Part 22

Dale laughed again.

"Well," he replied, "it is not quite the smallest. Say the medium. On again, Melchior!"

"Yes, herr: let's get as high as we can while the morning is young and the snow hard. We can take our time on the rock."

The guide was following the custom that seems to have come natural to man and beast--that of zigzagging up a steep place; but instead of making for the centre of the col, where it was lowest, he kept bearing to the left--that is, he made the track three times the length of that to the right, and he drew on toward where the slope grew steeper and steeper.

The snow was far better to walk upon now, for the surface was well frozen, and they had only to plant their feet in the deep steps the guide made by driving the soles of his heavily nailed boots well into the crust.

"Take care! take care!" he kept on saying to Saxe, who was in the middle. "There is no danger, but a slip would send you down, and you could not stop till you were at the bottom."

"I'll mind," said Saxe, as he stole a glance now and then up at the steep white slope above him, or at that beneath, beyond which the pines among which they had slept the past night now looked like heather.

"Yes, it is all very big, Mr Dale," he said suddenly.

"Wait a bit. You don't half know yet. Say it's bigger than you thought. Getting harder, isn't it, Melchior?"

"Yes, herr. If it gets much harder, I shall have to cut steps; but only here and there, where it's steepest."

"Isn't it steepest now?" said Saxe, who felt as if he could touch the surface by extending his right hand.

"Oh no, herr. You don't mind?"

"Not a bit," cried the lad: "I like it."

"What's the matter?" said Dale, as they still mounted the dazzling slope of snow, far now above the dip of the col over which they had come.

"Bad piece here, sir. We'll have the rope. I'll fasten my end and hand the rest to you, to secure yourselves while I begin cutting."

"Right!" replied Dale; and a minute later he caught the rings of hemp thrown to him, and rapidly knotted the middle round Saxe, the end to his own waist; and as he knotted, _click, click! chip, chip_! went the ice-axe, deftly wielded by the guide, who with two or three blows broke through enough of the crust to make a secure footing while the ice flew splintering down the slope in miniature avalanches, with a peculiar metallic tinkling sound.

"Will there be much to cut?" said Dale.

"No, herr; only a step here and there to make us quite safe,"--and he chipped away again after a few steps, and broke in others with the toes of his boots.

"I say," whispered Saxe, "suppose he slipped while he's swinging that axe round, he'd drag us both down too."

"And by the same argument, if you or I slipped, we should s.n.a.t.c.h him from his place."

"Yes; that's what I thought.

"That would only be in a very extreme case; and you may as well learn your mountaineer's lesson at once. When we are roped together, and one slips, he generally saves himself by rapidly sticking the sharp pick of his axe into the snow. He gives the others ample warning by this that something is wrong before the jerk and strain come upon the rope."

"And what do they do?"

"Drive their ice-picks right into the snow, hang back against the slope, and tighten the rope from one to the other. So that generally, instead of a fall, there is only a short slip. Do you understand!"

"Yes, I think so."

"So it is that three or four who understand mountaineering, and work together and trust each other, go up and down places that would be impa.s.sable to the unskilful. Hah! we are getting to the top of this slope. Tut, tut! cutting again. Look out!"

The last two words were roared out; and chip, chip, there came close upon one another the sound of two ice-picks being driven into the snow, the guide's like an echo of Dale's, for his axe was raised to cut a fresh step, but he changed the direction like lightning, drove it in high up the slope, and held on forward, Dale backward.

For, in the most unexpected manner, one of Saxe's feet had slipped as he stepped short, and down he went to lie helplessly a dozen feet from where he had stood, hanging suspended from the two ends of the rope-- fortunately for him tight round the waists of his companions.

"Herr, herr!" shouted the guide reproachfully, as he looked back over his shoulder, "where's your ice-axe?"

"Here," said Saxe dolefully, raising it a little, and vainly trying to drive his toes through the hard crust, newly frozen in the night.

"'Here,' sir!" cried Melchior: "but it has no business to be 'here.'

Strike! strike hard! and drive it into the snow."

Saxe raised it in both hands, and struck.

"No, no!" cried the guide; "take hold right at the end, and drive it in as high up as you can reach. Hah! that's better. Now hand over hand.

It will hold. Pull yourself up as high as you can."

"That do?" said Saxe, panting, after obeying the orders and contriving to get a couple of feet.

"Yes," said the guide, tightening the rope in company with Dale. "Now then, again! A better one this time."

The boy struck the pick in again as hard as he could, and was more successful. The rope was tightened to support him after he had climbed higher; and after three or four minutes he stood once more in his old place panting.

"Wait till he gets his breath, Melchior," said Dale. "There, boy, it has been a splendid lesson for you, in a place where the worst that could have happened to you was a sharp glissade and some skin off your hands and face. That ice-axe ought to have been driven like lightning into the snow, or the pick held towards it downward. It would have ploughed in and anch.o.r.ed you."

"I'll try better next time," said Saxe. "I'm sorry I'm so stupid."

"The young herr did well," cried Melchior warmly. "Why, I have known men hang from the rope helpless and afraid to stir at such a time.

Ready? Vorwarts!"

He started again, cutting a step here and there, but very few now; and a quarter of an hour later a long path took them to where the smooth slope gave place to piled-up ma.s.ses of rock, which looked as if they had been hurled down from above.

Then came a couple of hours' toilsome climb over broken stones, and up ma.s.ses that were mastered by sheer scrambling. Now and then an easy rock slope presented itself, or a gully between two b.u.t.tresses of the mountain, as they won their way higher and higher. Only once was there a really dangerous place--a mere ledge, such as they had pa.s.sed along on the previous day, but instead of a raging torrent beneath them there was a wall of nearly perpendicular rock running down for about a thousand feet to a great bed of snow.

But the distance was short, and Saxe stepped out bravely, perfectly aware, though, that his companions were keeping the rope pretty tight and watching his every step.

"Well done!" cried Melchior.

"Bravo, Saxe!" said Dale, as soon as they were safely across: "I see your head is screwed on right. Forward!"

"But he don't know what a weak screw it is," thought Saxe. "Why, they must have seen how white I was! I shall never dare to get back that way."

Three or four awkward bits were circ.u.mvented; a couloir or gully full of snow mounted; and then there was a long climb up a moderate slope toward where a ridge of rocks stood out sharply, with snow sloping down on either side, the ridge running up far into the mountain; but before they could get to this a deep bed of old snow--"firn" Melchior called it--a great sheet, like some large white field, had to be pa.s.sed.

But this was mastered, and the climb began up towards the ridge.

"The herr remembers this?" Melchior said.