re and eat at
once."

"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. We
have 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 Helen
with a pleasant disclaimer.

"Christian kept his hoard a secret, Miss Wynton. I too have lost my
appetite," 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 his
hostility to the absurd pitch of refusing to partake of any food
provided by Bower. It was a queer coincidence that Spencer harbored
the same notion with regard to Stampa, and wondered at it.

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

Bower poured out a quantity of wine and drank it at a gulp. He
refilled the glass and nearly emptied it a second time. But he touched
not a morsel of meat or bread. Helen, fortunately, attributed the
conduct of the men to spleen. She ate a sandwich, and found that she
was far more ready for a meal than she had imagined.

Stampa's broad frame darkened the doorway. He told Karl not to burden
himself with anything save the cutlery. Now that he was the skilled
guide again, the leader in whom they trusted, his worn face was
animated 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 my
call. 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 his
lips.

"_Che diavolo!_ It shall be as I have said!" shouted Stampa, with an
imperious gesture. Helen remarked it; but things were being done and
said 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 less
frequent, and the thunder was muttering far away amid the secret
places of the B