lope at his side and
turned round.

"Lean well way from the slope, mademoiselle, not toward it. There is less
chance then of slipping from the steps," he said anxiously, and there
came a look of surprise upon his face. For he saw that already of her own
thought she was standing straight in her steps, thrusting herself out
from the slope by pressing the pick of her ax against it at the level of
her waist. And more than once thereafter Jean turned about and watched
her with a growing perplexity. Chayne looked to see whether her face
showed any sign of fear. On the contrary she was looking down that great
sweep of ice with an actual exultation. And it was not ignorance which
allowed her to exult. The evident anxiety of Chayne's words, and the
silence which since had fallen upon one and all were alone enough to
assure her that here was serious work. But she had been reading deeply of
the Alps, and in all the histories of mountain exploits which she had
read, of climbs up vertical cracks in sheer walls of rocks, balancings
upon ridges sharp as a knife edge, crawlings over smooth slabs with
nowhere to rest the feet or hands, it was the ice-slope which had most
kindled her imagination. The steep, smooth, long ice-slope, white upon
the surface, grayish-green or even black where the ax had cut the step,
the place where no slip must be made. She had lain awake at nights
listening to the roar of the streets beneath her window and picturing it,
now sleeping in the sunlight, now enwreathed in mists which opened and
showed still higher heights and still lower depths, now whipped angrily
with winds which tore off the surface icicles and snow, and sent them
swirling like smoke about the shoulders of the peak. She had dreamed
herself on to it, half shrinking, half eager, and now she was actually
upon one and she felt no fear. She could not but exult.

The sunlight was hot upon this face of the mountain; yet her feet grew
cold, as she stood patiently in her steps, advancing slowly as the man
before her moved. Once as she stood, she moved her foot and scratched the
sole of her boot on the ice to level a roughness in the step, and at once
she saw Chayne and the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard
into the slope at their side and stand tense as if expecting a jerk upon
the rope. Afterward they both looked round at her, and seeing she was
safe turned back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps, Chayne
polishing them