iselle," he said, pointing eastward across
the glacier.

Sylvia turned in that direction.

Straight in front of her a bay of ice ran back, sloping ever upward, and
around the bay there rose a steep wall of cliffs which in the center
sharpened precipitously to an apex. The apex was not a point but a
rounded level ridge of snow which curved over on the top of the cliffs
like a billow of foam. A tiny black tower of rock stood alone on the
northern end of the snow-ridge.

"That, mademoiselle, is the Aiguille d'Argentiere. We cross the
glacier here."

Jean put the rope about her waist, fixing it with the fisherman's bend,
and tied one end about his own, using the overhand knot, while his
brother tied on behind. They then turned at right angles to their former
march and crossed the glacier, keeping the twenty feet of rope which
separated each person extended. Once Jean looked back and uttered an
exclamation of surprise. For he saw Chayne and his guides following
across the glacier behind, and Chayne's road to the Col Dolent at the
head of the glacier lay straight ahead upon their former line of advance.
However he said nothing.

They crossed the bergschrund with less difficulty than they had
anticipated, and ascending a ridge of debris, by the side of the lateral
glacier which descended from the cliffs of the Aiguille d'Argentiere,
they advanced into the bay under the southern wall of the Aiguille du
Chardonnet. On the top of this moraine Jean halted, and the party
breakfasted, and while they breakfasted Chayne told Sylvia something of
that mountain's history. "It is not the most difficult of peaks," said
he, "but it has associations, which some of the new rock-climbs have not.
The pioneers came here." Right behind them there was a gap, the pass
between their mountain and the Aiguille du Chardonnet. "From that pass
Moore and Whymper first tried to reach the top by following the crest of
the cliffs, but they found it impracticable. Whymper tried again, but
this time up the face of the cliffs further on to the south and just to
the left of the summit. He failed, came back again and conquered. We
follow his road."

And while they looked up the dead white of that rounded summit ridge
changed to a warm rosy color and all about that basin the topmost peaks
took fire.

"It is the sun," said he.

Sylvia looked across the valley. The great ice-triangle of the Aiguille
Verte flashed and sparkled. The slopes of the Les Droite