The Silent Barrier Part 16

"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 a business. I thought the essentials were a packet of sandwiches and a flask."

"You will please not be flippant. Climbing is serious work. And you must 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 the Channel. Even old hands like me are not free from mountain sickness, though it seizes us at higher alt.i.tudes than we shall reach to-day. In the case of a novice, anything in the nature of hurrying during the outward journey is an unfailing factor."

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

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

"Stampa! Who is Stampa?"

There was a sudden rasp of iron in his voice. As a rule Bower spoke with a cultivated languor that almost veiled the staccato accents of the man of affairs. Helen was so surprised by this unwarranted clang of 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 my carriage during the journey from St. Moritz," she explained.

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

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

He laughed gayly and drew in deep breaths of the keen air. He was carrying his ice ax over his left shoulder. With his right hand he brushed away a disturbing thought. "By Jove! yes! Dunston dragged me off to open a bank at baccarat, and you will be glad to hear that I won 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 play for four figures; but he backed out of it."

"Do you mean that Mr. Spencer wanted to stake a thousand pounds on a single 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 young man," said Helen decisively.

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

"Oh, you are different. I disapprove of anyone playing for such high stakes; but I suppose you are used to it and can afford it, whereas a man who has his way to make in the world would be exceedingly foolish to 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 I mean is that he may be quite as well able to run a big bank at baccarat as I am."

"He was telling me yesterday of his early struggles to gain a footing in some mining community in Colorado, and the impression his words left on me was that he is still far from wealthy; that is, as one understands the term. Here we are at the footpath. Shall we follow it and scramble up out of the ravine, or do you prefer the carriage road?"

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

Helen had the best of reasons for rejecting this version of the story.

Her perceptive faculties, always well developed, were strung to high tension in Maloja. The social pinp.r.i.c.ks inflicted there had rendered her more alert, more cautious, than was her wont. She was quite sure, for instance, judging from a number of slight indications, that Spencer was deliberately avoiding any opportunity of making Bower's acquaintance. More than once, when an introduction seemed to be imminent, the American effaced himself. Other men in the hotel were not like that--they rather sought the great man's company. She wondered if Bower had noticed it. Despite his candid, almost generous, disclaimer of motive, there was an undercurrent of hostility in his words that suggested a feeling of pique. She climbed the rocky path in silence until Bower spoke again.

"How do the boots go?" he asked.

"Splendidly, thanks. It was exceedingly kind of you to take such trouble 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 have known people become absolutely lame on the home journey through wearing boots only just large enough for ordinary walking. As for the clamping of the nails over the edges of the soles, the sharp stones render that imperative. When you have crossed a moraine or two, and a peculiarly nasty _geroll_ that exists beyond the hut, if we have time to make an easy ascent, you will understand the need of extra strong footwear."

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

"A slope of loose stones. Let me see, what do they call it in Scotland and c.u.mberland? Ah, yes, a scree. On the French side of the Alps the same thing is known as a _ca.s.se_."

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

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

"Have you done the Matterhorn?"

"Yes, four times. Once I followed Tyndall's example, and converted the summit into a pa.s.s 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 the Jungfrau without the best men, and in my time there were not twenty, all told. I had a long talk with our present guide last night, and found 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 was a small boy. He appeared to be waiting expectantly on a hillock for someone who came not.

"Is that a signal?" she asked.

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

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

An hour pa.s.sed pleasantly in this manner. Their guide, a man named Josef Barth, and the porter, who answered to "Karl," awaited them at the milk chalet by the side of Lake Cavloccio. Bower, evidently accustomed to the leadership of expeditions of this sort, tested their ice axes and examined the ropes slung to Barth's rucksack.

"The Forno is a glacier _de luxe_," he explained to Helen; "but it is always advisable to make sure that your appliances are in good order.

That _pickel_ you are carrying was made by the best blacksmith in Grindelwald, and you can depend on its soundness; but these men are so familiar with their surroundings that they often provide themselves with frayed ropes and damaged axes."

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

"Your grat.i.tude now is as nothing to the ecstasy you will display when Karl unpacks his load," he answered lightly. "Now, Miss Wynton, _en route_! You know the path to the glacier already, don't you?"