The Silent Barrier

  CHAPTER IX

  "ETTA'S FATHER"

  Though the hut was a crude thing, a triumph of essentials overluxuries, Helen had never before hailed four walls and a roof withsuch heartfelt, if silent, thanksgiving. She sank exhausted on a roughbench, and watched the matter-of-fact Engadiners unpacking the storesand firewood carried in their rucksacks. Their businesslike airsupplied the tonic she needed. Though the howling storm seemed tothreaten the tiny refuge with destruction, these two men set to work,coolly and methodically, to prepare a meal. Barth arranged thecontents of Karl's bulky package on a small table, and the porterbusied himself with lighting a fire in a Swiss stove that stood in thecenter of the outer room. An inner apartment loomed black anduninviting through an open doorway. Helen discovered later that somescanty accommodation was provided there for those who meant to sleepin the hut in readiness for an early ascent, while it supplied aseparate room in the event of women taking part in an expedition.

  Bower offered her a quantity of brandy and water. She declined it,declaring that she needed only time to regain her breath. He was a manwho might be trusted not to pester anyone with well meant but uselessattentions. He went to the door, lit a cigarette, and seemed to bekeenly interested in the sleet as it pelted the moraine or gathered indrifts in the minor fissures of the glacier.

  Within a remarkably short space of time, Karl had concocted two cupsof steaming coffee. Helen was then all aglow. Her strength wasrestored. The boisterous wind had crimsoned her cheeks beneath thetan. She had never looked such a picture of radiant womanhood as afterthis tussle with the storm. Luckily her clothing was not wet, sincethe travelers reached the _cabane_ at the very instant the elementsbecame really aggressive. It was a quite composed and reinvigoratedHelen who summoned Bower from his contemplation of the weatherportents.

  "We may be besieged," she cried; "but at any rate we are not on faminerations. What a spread! You could hardly have brought more food if youfancied we might be kept here a week."

  The sustained physical effort called for during the last part of theclimb seemed to have dispelled his fit of abstraction. Being aneminently adaptable man, he responded to her mood. "Ah, that soundsmore like the enthusiast who set forth so gayly from the Kursaal thismorning," he answered, pulling the door ajar before he took a seat byher side on the bench. "A few minutes ago you were ready to condemn meas several kinds of idiot for going on in the teeth of our Switzers'warnings. Now, confess!"

  "I don't think I could have climbed another ten yards," she admitted.

  "Our haste was due to Barth's anxiety. He wanted to save you from adrenching. It was a near thing, and with the thermometer falling adegree a minute soaked garments might have brought very unpleasantconsequences. But that was our only risk. Old mountaineer as I am, Ihardly expected such a blizzard in August, after such short noticetoo. Otherwise, now that we are safely housed, you are fortunate insecuring a memorable experience. The storm will soon blow over; but itpromises to be lively while it lasts."

  Helen was sipping her coffee. Perhaps her eyes conveyed the questionher tongue hesitated to utter. Bower smiled pleasantly, andgesticulated with hands and shoulders in a way that was foreign tohis studiously cultivated English habit of repose. Indeed, with hisclimber's garb he seemed to have acquired a new manner. There was aperplexing change in him since the morning.

  "Yes," he said. "I understand perfectly. You and I might sing _liederohne worte_, Miss Wynton. I have known these summer gales to last fourdays; but pray do not be alarmed," for Helen nearly dropped her cup inquick dismay; "my own opinion is that we shall have a delightfulafternoon. Of course, I am a discredited prophet. Ask Barth."

  The guide, hearing his name mentioned, glanced at them, though he wasengaged at the moment in taking the wrappings off a quantity of bread,cold chicken, and slices of ham and beef. He agreed with Bower. Thebarometer stood high when they left the hotel. He thought, as all menthink who live in the open, that "the sharper the blast the soonerit's past."

  "Moreover," broke in Karl, who refused to be left out of theconversation, "Johann Klucker's cat was sitting with its back to thestove last evening."

  This bit of homely philosophy brought a ripple of laughter from Helen,whereupon Karl explained.

  "Cats are very wise, _fraeulein_. Johann Klucker's cat is old.Therefore she is skilled in reading the tokens of the weather. A cathates wind and rain, and makes her arrangements accordingly. If shewashes herself smoothly, the next twelve hours will be fine. If shelicks against the grain, it will be wet. When she lies with her backto the fire, there will surely be a squall. When her tail is up andher coat rises, look out for wind."

  "Johann Klucker's cat has settled the dispute," said Bower gravely inEnglish. "A squall it is,--a most suitable prediction for a cat,--andI am once more rehabilitated in your esteem, I hope?"

  A cold iridescence suddenly illumined the gloomy interior of the hut.It gave individuality to each particle of sleet whirling past thedoor. Helen thought that the sun had broken through the storm cloudsfor an instant; but Bower said quietly:

  "Are you afraid of lightning?"

  "Not very. I don't like it."

  "Some people collapse altogether when they see it. Perhaps whenforewarned you are forearmed."

  A low rumble boomed up the valley, and the mountain echoes muttered insolemn chorus.

  "We are to be spared none of the scenic accessories, then?" saidHelen.

  "None. In fact, you will soon see and hear a thunder storm that wouldhave delighted Gustave Dore. Please remember that it cannot last long,and that this hut has been built twenty years to my knowledge."

  Helen sipped her coffee, but pushed away a plate set before her byBarth. "If you don't mind, I should like the door wide open," shesaid.

  "You prefer to lunch later?"

  "Yes."

  "And you wish to face the music--is that it?"

  "I think so."

  "Let me remind you that Jove's thunderbolts are really forged on thehilltops."

  "I am here; so I must make the best of it. I shall not scream, orfaint, if that is what you dread."

  "I dread nothing but your anger for not having turned back when aretreat was possible. I hate turning back, Miss Wynton. I have neveryet withdrawn from any enterprise seriously undertaken, and I wasdetermined to share your first ramble among my beloved hills."

  Another gleam of light, bluer and more penetrating than itsforerunner, lit the brown rafters of the _cabane_. It was succeeded bya crash like the roar of massed artillery. The walls trembled. Someparticles of mortar rattled noisily to the floor. A strange sound ofrending, followed by a heavy thud, suggested something more tangiblethan thunderbolts. Bower kicked the door and it swung inward.

  "An avalanche," he said. "Probably a rockfall too. Of course, the hutstands clear of the track of unpleasant visitors of that description."

  Helen had not expected this courageous bearing in a man of Bower'sphysical characteristics. Hitherto she had regarded him as somewhatself indulgent, a Sybarite, the product of modernity in its Londonaspects. His demeanor in the train, in the hotel, bespoke oneaccustomed to gratify the flesh, who found all the world ready topander to his desires. Again she was conscious of that instinctivetrustfulness a woman freely reposes in a dominant man. Oddly enough,she thought of Spencer in the same breath. An hour earlier, had shebeen asked which of these two would command her confidence during astorm, her unhesitating choice would have favored the American. Now,she was at least sure that Bower's coolness was not assumed. Hisattitude inspired emulation. She rose and went to the door.

  "I want to see an avalanche," she cried. "Where did that one fall?"

  Bower followed her. He spoke over her shoulder. "On Monte Roseg, Iexpect. The weather seems to be clearing slightly. This tearing windwill soon roll up the mist, and the thunder will certainly startanother big rock or a snowslide. If you are lucky, you may witnesssomething really fine."

  A dazzling flash leaped over the glacier. Although the surroundin
gpeaks were as yet invisible through the haze of sleet and vapor,objects near at hand were revealed with uncanny distinctness. Eachfrozen wave on the surface of the ice was etched in sharp lines. Acluster of seracs on a neighboring icefall showed all their mad chaos.The blue green chasm of a huge crevasse was illumined to a depth farbelow any point to which the rays of the sun penetrated. On theneighboring slope of Monte Roseg the crimson and green and yellowmosses were given sudden life against the black background of rock.Every boulder here wore a somber robe. They were stark and grim. Theeye instantly caught the contrast to their gray-white fellows piled onthe lower moraine or in the bed of the Orlegna.

  Helen was quick to note the new tone of black amid the vividly whitepatches of snow. She waited until the deafening thunder peal was dyingaway in eerie cadences. "Why are the rocks black here and almost whitein the valley?" she asked.

  "Because they are young, as rocks go," was the smiling answer. "Theyhave yet to pass through the mill. They will be battered and bruisedand polished before they emerge from the glacier several years henceand a few miles nearer peace. In that they resemble men. 'Pon my word,Miss Wynton, you have caused me to evolve a rather poetic explanationof certain gray hairs I have noticed of late among my own ravenlocks."

  "You appear to know and love these hills so well that I wonder--if youwill excuse a personal remark--I wonder you ever were able to tearyourself away from them."

  "I have missed too much of real enjoyment in the effort to amassriches," he said slowly. "Believe me, that thought has held mesince--since you and I set foot on the Forno together."

  "But you knew? You were no stranger to the Alps? I am beginning tounderstand that one cannot claim kinship with the high places untilthey stir the heart more in storm than in sunshine. When I saw allthese giants glittering in the sun like knights in silver armor, Idescribed them to myself as gloriously beautiful. Now I feel that theyare more than that,--they are awful, pitiless in their indifferenceto frail mortals; they carry me into a dim region where life and deathare terms without meaning."

  "Yes, that is the true spirit of the mountains. I too used to look onthem with affectionate reverence, and you recall the old days.Perhaps, if I am deemed worthy, you will teach me the cult once more."

  He bent closer. Helen became conscious that in her enthusiasm she hadspoken unguardedly. She moved away, slightly but unmistakably, a stepor two out into the open, for the hut on that side was not exposed tothe bitter violence of the wind.

  "It is absurd to imagine us in a change of role," she cried. "I shouldplay the poorest travesty of Mentor to your Telemachus. Oh! What isthat?"

  While she was speaking, another blinding flare of lightning floodedmoraine and glacier and pierced the veil of sleet. Her voice rosealmost to a shriek. Bower sprang forward. His left hand restedreassuringly across her shoulders.

  "Better come inside the hut," he began.

  "But I saw someone--a white face--staring at me down there!"

  "It is possible. There is no cause for fear. A party may have crossedfrom Italy. There would be none from the Maloja at this hour."

  Helen was actually trembling. Bower drew her a little nearer. Hehimself was unnerved, a prey to wilder emotions than she could guesstill later days brought a fuller understanding. It was a mad trick offate that threw the girl into his embrace just then, for anotherfar-flung sheet of fire revealed to her terrified vision the figuresof Spencer and Stampa on the rocks beneath. With brutal candor, thesame flash showed her nestling close to Bower. For some reason, sheshuddered. Though the merciful gloom of the next few seconds restoredher faculties, her face and neck were aflame. She almost felt that shehad been detected in some fault. Her confusion was not lessened byhearing a muttered curse from her companion. Careless of the stingingsleet, she leaped down to a broad tier of rock below the plateau ofthe hut and cried shrilly:

  "Is that really you, Mr. Spencer?"

  A more tremendous burst of thunder than any yet experienced dwarfedall other sounds for an appreciable time. The American scrambled up,almost at her feet, and stood beside her. Stampa came quick on hisheels, moving with a lightness and accuracy of foothold amazing in oneso lame.

  "Just me, Miss Wynton. Sorry if I have frightened you, but our oldfriend here was insistent that we should hurry. I have been trackingyou since nine o'clock."

  Spencer's words were nonchalantly polite. He even raised his cap,though the fury of the ice laden blast might well have excused thisformal act of courtesy. Helen was still blushing so painfully that shebecame angry with herself, and her voice was hardly under control.Nevertheless, she managed to say:

  "How kind and thoughtful of you! I am all right, as you see. Mr. Bowerand the guide were able to bring me here before the storm broke. Wehappened to be standing near the door, watching the lightning. When Icaught a glimpse of you I was so stupidly startled that I screamed andalmost fell into Mr. Bower's arms."

  Put in that way, it did not sound so distressing. And Spencer had nodesire to add further difficulties to a situation already awkward.

  "Guess you scared me too," he said. "I suppose, now we are at the hut,Stampa will not object to my waiting five minutes or so before westart for home."

  "Surely you will lunch with us. Everything is set out on the table,and we have food enough for a regiment."

  "You would need it if you remained here another couple of hours, MissWynton. Stampa tells me that a first rate _guxe_, which is Swiss for ablizzard, I believe, is blowing up. This thunder storm is thepreliminary to a heavy downfall of snow. That is why I came. If we arenot off the glacier before two o'clock, it will become impassable tilla lot of the snow melts."

  "What is that you are saying?" demanded Bower bruskly. Helen and thetwo men had reached the level of the _cabane_; but Stampa, thinkingthey would all enter, kept in the rear, "If that fairy tale accountsfor your errand, you are on a wild goose chase, Mr. Spencer."

  He had not heard the American's words clearly; but he gatheredsufficient to account for the younger man's motive in following them,and was furiously annoyed by this unlooked for interruption. He had nosyllable of thanks for a friendly action. Though no small riskattended the crossing of the Forno during a gale, it was evident hestrongly resented the presence of both Spencer and the guide.

  Helen, after her first eager outburst, was tongue tied. She saw thather would-be rescuers were dripping wet, and was amazed that Bowershould greet them so curtly, though, to be sure, she believedimplicitly that the storm would soon pass. Stampa was already insidethe hut. He was haranguing Barth and the porter vehemently, and theywere listening with a curious submissiveness.

  Spencer was the most collected person present. He brushed asideBower's acrimony as lightly as he had accepted Helen's embarrassedexplanation. "This is not my hustle at all," he said. "Stampa heardthat his adored _signorina_----"

  "Stampa! Is that Stampa?"

  Bower's strident voice was hushed to a hoarse murmur. It reminded oneof his hearers of a growling dog suddenly cowed by fear. Helen's earswere tuned to this perplexing note; but Spencer interpreted itaccording to his dislike of the man.

  "Stampa heard," he went on, with cold-drawn precision, "that MissWynton had gone to the Forno. He is by far the most experienced guideto be found on this side of the Alps, and he believes that anyoneremaining up here to-day will surely be imprisoned in the hut a weekor more by bad weather. In fact, even now an hour may make all thedifference between danger and safety. Perhaps you can convince him heis wrong. I know nothing about it, beyond the evidence of my senses,backed up by some acquaintance with blizzards. Anyhow, I am inclinedto think that Miss Wynton will be wise if she listens to the points ofthe argument in the hotel."

  "Perhaps it would be better to return at once," said Helen timidly.Her sensitive nature warned her that these two men were ready toquarrel, and that she herself, in some nebulous way, was the cause oftheir mutual enmity.

  Beyond this her intuition could not travel. It was impossible that sheshould realize ho
w sorely her wish to placate Bower disquietedSpencer. He had seen the two under conditions that might, indeed, beexplicable by Helen's fright; but he would extend no such charitableconsideration to Bower, whose conduct, no matter how it was viewed,made him a rival. Yes, it had come to that. Spencer had hardly spokena word to Stampa during the toilsome journey from Maloja. He hadlooked facts stubbornly in the face, and the looking served to clearcertain doubts from his heart and brain. He wanted to woo and winHelen for his wife. He was enmeshed in a net of his own contriving,and its strands were too strong to be broken. If Helen was reft fromhim now, he would gaze on a darkened world for many a day.

  But he was endowed with a splendid self control. That element of caststeel in his composition, discovered by Dunston after five minutes'acquaintance, kept him rigid under the strain.

  "Sorry I should figure as spoiling your excursion, Miss Wynton," hewas able to say calmly; "but, when all is said and done, the weatheris bad, and you will have plenty of fine days later."

  Bower crept nearer. His action suggested stealth. Although the windwas howling under the deep eaves of the hut, he almost whispered."Yes, you are right--quite right. Let us go now--at once. With you andme, Mr. Spencer, Miss Wynton will be safe--safer than with the guides.They can follow with the stores. Come! There is no time to be lost!"

  The others were so taken aback by his astounding change of front thatthey were silent for an instant. It was Helen who protested, firmlyenough.

  "The lightning seems to have given us an attack of nerves," she said."It would be ridiculous to rush off in that manner----"

  "But there is peril--real peril--in delay. I admit it. I was wrong."

  Bower's anxiety was only too evident. Spencer, regarding him from asingle viewpoint, deemed him a coward, and his gorge rose at thethought.

  "Oh, nonsense!" he cried contemptuously. "We shall be two hours on theglacier, so five more minutes won't cut any ice. If you have food anddrink in there, Stampa certainly wants both. We all need them. We haveto meet that gale all the way. The two hours may become three beforewe reach the path."

  Helen guessed the reason of his disdain. It was unjust; but the momentdid not permit of a hint that he was mistaken. To save Bower fromfurther commitment--which, she was convinced, was due entirely toregard for her own safety--she went into the hut.

  "Stampa," she said, "I am very much obliged to you for taking so muchtrouble. I suppose we may eat something before we start?"

  "Assuredly, _fraeulein_," he cried. "Am I not here? Were it to begin tosnow at once, I could still bring you unharmed to the chalets."

  Josef Barth had borne Stampa's reproaches with surly deference; but herefused to be degraded in this fashion--before Karl, too, whose tonguewagged so loosely.

  "That is the talk of a foolish boy, not of a man," he criedwrathfully. "Am I not fitted, then, to take mademoiselle home afterbringing her here?"

  "Truly, on a fine day, Josef," was the smiling answer.

  "I told monsieur that a _guxe_ was blowing up from the south; so didKarl; but he would not hearken. _Ma foi!_ I am not to blame." Barth,on his dignity, introduced a few words of French picked up from theChamounix men. He fancied they would awe Stampa, and proveincidentally how wide was his own experience.

  The old guide only laughed. "A nice pair, you and Karl," he shouted."Are the voyageurs in your care or not? You told monsieur, indeed! Youought to have refused to take mademoiselle. That would have settledthe affair, I fancy."

  "But this monsieur knows as much about the mountains as any of us. Hemight surprise even you, Stampa. He has climbed the Matterhorn fromZermatt and Breuil. He has come down the rock wall on the Col desNantillons. How is one to argue with such a _voyageur_ on this child'sglacier?"

  Stampa whistled. "Oh--knows the Matterhorn, does he? What is hisname?"

  "Bower," said Helen,--"Mr. Mark Bower."

  "What! Say that again, _fraeulein_! Mark Bower? Is that your Englishway of putting it?"

  Helen attributed Stampa's low hiss to a tardy recognition of Bower'sfame as a mountaineer. Though the hour was noon, the light was feeble.Veritable thunder clouds had gathered above the mist, and theexpression of Stampa's face was almost hidden in the obscurity of thehut.

  "That is his name," she repeated. "You must have heard of him. He waswell known on the high Alps--years ago." She paused before she addedthose concluding words. She was about to say "in your time," but thesubstituted phrase was less personal, since the circumstances underwhich Stampa ceased to be a notability in "the street" at Zermatt werein her mind.

  "God in heaven!" muttered the old man, passing a hand over his face asthough waking from a dream,--"God in heaven! can it be that my prayeris answered at last?" He shambled out.

  Spencer had waited to watch the almost continuous blaze of lightningplaying on the glacier. Distant summits were now looming through thediminishing downpour of sleet. He was wondering if by any chanceStampa might be mistaken. Bower stood somewhat apart, seeminglyengaged in the same engrossing task. The wind was not quite so fierceas during its first onset. It blew in gusts. No longer screaming in ashrill and sustained note, it wailed fitfully.

  Stampa lurched unevenly close to Bower. He was about to touch him onthe shoulder; but he appeared to recollect himself in time.

  "Marcus Bauer," he said in a voice that was terrible by reason of itsrestraint.

  Bower wheeled suddenly. He did not flinch. His manner suggested acertain preparedness. Thus might a strong man face a wild beast whenhope lay only in the matching of sinew against sinew. "That is not myname," he snarled viciously.

  "Marcus Bauer," repeated Stampa in the same repressed monotone, "I amEtta's father."

  "Why do you address me in that fashion? I have never before seen you."

  "No. You took care of that. You feared Etta's father, though you caredlittle for Christian Stampa, the guide. But I have seen you, MarcusBauer. You were slim then--an elegant, is it not?--and many a timehave I hobbled into the Hotel Mont Cervin to look at your portrait ina group lest I should forget your face. Yet I passed you just now!Great God! I passed you."

  A ferocity glared from Bower's eyes that might well have dauntedStampa. For an instant he glanced toward Spencer, whose clear cutprofile was silhouetted against a background of white-blue ice nowgleaming in a constant flutter of lightning. Stampa was not yet awareof the true cause of Bower's frenzy. He thought that terror wasspurring him to self defense. An insane impulse to kill, to fight withthe nails and teeth, almost mastered him; but that must not be yet.

  "It is useless, Marcus Bauer," he said, with a calmness so horriblyunreal that its deadly intent was all the more manifest. "I am theavenger, not you. I can tear you to pieces with my hands when I will.It would be here and now, were it not for the presence of the English_signorina_ who saved me from death. It is not meet that she shouldwitness your expiation. That is to be settled between you and mealone."

  Bower made one last effort to assert himself. "You are talking inriddles, man," he said. "If you believe you have some long forgottengrievance against one of my name, come and see me to-morrow at thehotel. Perhaps----"

  "Yes, I shall see you to-morrow. Do not dream that you can escape me.Now that I know you live, I would search the wide world for you.Blessed Mother! How you must have feared me all these years!"

  Stampa was using the Romansch dialect of the Italian Alps. Bower spokein German. Spencer heard them indistinctly. He marveled that theyshould discuss, as he imagined, the state of the weather with suchsubdued passion.

  "Hello, Christian," he cried, "the clouds are lifting somewhat. Whereis your promised snow?"

  Stampa peered up into Bower's face; for his twisted leg had reducedhis own unusual height by many inches. "To-morrow!" he whispered. "Atten o'clock--outside the hotel. Then we have a settlement. Is it so?"

  There was no answer. Bower was wrestling with a mad desire to grapplewith him and fling him down among the black rocks. Stampa creptnearer. A ghastly smile lit his rugged featur
es, and his _pickel_clattered to the broken shingle at his feet.

  "I offer you to-morrow," he said. "I am in no hurry. Have I not waitedsixteen years? But it may be that you are tortured by a devil, MarcusBauer. Shall it be now?"

  The clean-souled peasant believed that the millionaire had aconscience. Not yet did he understand that balked desire is strongerthan any conscience. It really seemed that nothing could withholdthese two from mortal struggle then and there. Spencer was regardingthem curiously; but they paid no heed to him. Bower's tongue wasdarting in and out between his teeth. The red blood surged to histemples. Stampa was still smiling. His lips moved in the strangestprayer that ever came from a man's heart. He was actually thanking theMadonna--mother of the great peacemaker--for having brought his enemywithin reach!

  "Mr. Bower!" came Helen's voice from the door of the _cabane_. "Whydon't you join us? And you, Mr. Spencer? Stampa, come here and eat atonce."

  "To-morrow, at ten? Or now?" the old man whispered again.

  "To-morrow--curse you!"

  Stampa twisted himself round. "I am not hungry, _fraeulein_," he cried."I ate chocolate all the way up the glacier. But do you be speedy. Wehave lost too much time already."

  Bower brushed past, and the guide stooped to recover his ice ax.Spencer, though troubled sufficiently by his own disturbing fantasies,did not fail to notice their peculiar behavior. But he answered Helenwith a pleasant disclaimer.

  "Christian kept his hoard a secret, Miss Wynton. I too have lost myappetite," said he.

  "Once we start we shall hardly be able to unpack the hamper again,"said Helen.

  The American was trying her temper. She suspected that he carried hishostility to the absurd pitch of refusing to partake of any foodprovided by Bower. It was a queer coincidence that Spencer harboredthe same notion with regard to Stampa, and wondered at it.

  "I shall starve willingly," he said. "It will be a just punishment fordeclining the good things that did not tempt me when they wereavailable."

  Bower poured out a quantity of wine and drank it at a gulp. Herefilled the glass and nearly emptied it a second time. But he touchednot a morsel of meat or bread. Helen, fortunately, attributed theconduct of the men to spleen. She ate a sandwich, and found that shewas far more ready for a meal than she had imagined.

  Stampa's broad frame darkened the doorway. He told Karl not to burdenhimself with anything save the cutlery. Now that he was the skilledguide again, the leader in whom they trusted, his worn face wasanimated and his voice eager.

  Helen heard Spencer's exclamation without.

  "By Jove, Stampa! you are right! Here comes the snow."

  "Quick, quick!" cried Stampa. "_Vorwaertz_, Barth. You lead. Stop at mycall. Karl next--then the _fraeulein_ and my monsieur. Yours follows,and I come last."

  "No, no!" burst out Bower, lowering a third glass of wine from hislips.

  "_Che diavolo!_ It shall be as I have said!" shouted Stampa, with animperious gesture. Helen remarked it; but things were being done andsaid that were inexplicable. Even Bower was silenced.

  "Are we to be roped, then?" growled Barth.

  "Have you never crossed ice during a snow storm?" asked Stampa.

  In a few minutes they were ready. The lightning flashes were lessfrequent, and the thunder was muttering far away amid the secretplaces of the Bernina. The wind was rising again. Instead of sleet itcarried snowflakes, and these did not sting the face nor patter on theice. But they clung everywhere, and the sable rocks were taking untothemselves a new garment.

  "_Vorwaertz!_" rang out Stampa's trumpet like call, and Barth leapeddown into the moraine.