d the ring of the _pickel's_
steel-shod butt on the solid mass beneath, Helen might have fancied
that she was walking up an easy rock-covered slope. Any delusion on
that point, however, was promptly dispelled by a glimpse of a narrow
crevasse that split the foot of the glacier lengthwise.

She peered into its sea-green depths awesomely. It resembled a
toothless mouth gaping slowly open, ready enough to swallow her, but
too inert to put forth the necessary effort. And the thought reminded
her of something. She halted and turned to Bower.

"Ought we not to be roped?" she asked.

He laughed, with the quiet confidence of the expert mountaineer.
"Why?" he cried. "The way is clear. One does not walk into a crevasse
with one's eyes open."

"But Stampa told me that I should refuse to advance a yard on ice or
difficult rock without being roped."

"Stampa, your cab driver?"

There was no reason that she could fathom why her elderly friend's
name should be repeated with such scornful emphasis.

"Ah, yes. He is that because he is lame," she protested. "But he was
one of the most famous guides in Zermatt years ago."

She swung round and appealed to Barth, who was wondering why his
employers were stopping before they had climbed twenty feet. "Are you
from Zermatt?" she demanded.

"No, _fraeulein_--from Pontresina. Zermatt is a long way from here."

"But you know some of the Zermatt men, I suppose? Have you ever heard
of Christian Stampa?"

"Most certainly, _fraeulein_. My father helped him to build the first
hut on the Hoernli Ridge."

"Old Stampa!" chimed in Karl from beneath. "It will be long ere he is
forgotten. I was one of four who carried him down from Corvatsch to
Sils-Maria the day after he fell. He was making the descent by
night,--a mad thing to do,--and there was murder in his heart, they
said. But I never believed it. We shared a bottle of Monte Pulciano
only yesterday, just for the sake of old times, and he was as merry as
Hans von Rippach himself."

Bower was stooping, so Helen could not see his face. He seemed to be
fumbling with a boot lace.

"You hear, Mr. Bower?" she cried. "I am quoting no mean authority."

He did not answer. He had untied the lace and was readjusting it. The
girl realized that to a man of his portly build his present attitude
was not conducive to speech. It had an additional effect which did not
suggest itself to her. The effort thus demanded from heart and lungs
might bring ba