ning; the pines were touched with a brilliant if austere
warmth. The pride of lofty lineage and severe isolation was regnant over
all. And up through the splendour, and the shadows, and the loneliness,
and the austere warmth, must our travellers go. Must go? Scarcely that,
but the Honourable had made up his mind to cross the glacier and none
sought to dissuade him from his choice; the more so, because there was
something of danger in the business. Pretty Pierre had merely shrugged
his shoulders at the suggestion, and had said:

"'Nom de Dieu,' the higher we go the faster we live, that is something."

"Sometimes we live ourselves to death too quickly. In my schooldays I
watched a mouse in a jar of oxygen do that;" said the Honourable.

"That is the best way to die," remarked the halfbreed--"much."

Jo Gordineer had been over the path before. He was confident of the way,
and proud of his office of guide.

"Climb Mont Blanc, if you will," said the Honourable, "but leave me
these white bastions of the Selkirks."

Even so. They have not seen the snowy hills of God who have yet to look
upon the Rocky Mountains, absolute, stupendous, sublimely grave.

Jo Gordineer and Pretty Pierre strode on together. They being well away
from the other two, the Honourable turned and said to Shon: "What was
the name of the man who wrote that song of yours, again, Shon?"

"Lawless."

"Yes, but his first name?"

"Duke--Duke Lawless."

There was a pause, in which the other seemed to be intently studying the
glacier above them. Then he said: "What was he like?--in appearance, I
mean."

"A trifle more than your six feet, about your colour of hair and eyes,
and with a trick of smilin' that would melt the heart of an exciseman,
and O'Connell's own at a joke, barrin' a time or two that he got hold of
a pile of papers from the ould country. By the grave of St. Shon! thin
he was as dry of fun as a piece of blotting paper. And he said at last,
before he was aisy and free again, 'Shon,' says he, 'it's better to burn
your ships behind ye, isn't it?'

"And I, havin' thought of a glen in ould Ireland that I'll never see
again, nor any that's in it, said: 'Not, only burn them to the water's
edge, Duke Lawless, but swear to your own soul that they never lived but
in the dreams of the night.'

"'You're right there, Shon,' says he, and after that no luck was bad
enough to cloud the gay heart of him, and bad enough it was sometimes."

"And why d