The cabin at the Grands Mulets is furnished with rough bunks and cooking
apparatus, and during the summer a woman, Adele Balmat, assisted by the
guides, acts as hostess for this high-perched "inn," ten thousand feet
above sea level.

It is customary to leave the Grands Mulets for the ascent to the summit
soon after midnight, in order to get over the immense snow slopes before
the action of the sun has loosened the avalanches and weakened the
crevasse bridges. But we did not start until half-past three in the
morning. The waning moon, hanging over the Dome du Gouter, gave
sufficient light to render a lantern unnecessary, and dawn was near at
hand. Threatening bands of clouds attracted anxious glances from
Couttet, and it was evident that a change of weather impended. But we
clambered over the rocks to the crevassed slopes below the Gouter, and
pushed upward.

We were now approaching the higher and narrower portion of the immense
cleft or channel in the mountain that I have described. On our right
towered the Dome du Gouter, and on the left the walls of the Mont Maudit
and its outlying pinnacles. Snowy ridges and peaks shone afar in the
moonlight on all sides. It was a wilderness of white.

[Illustration: ADELE BALMAT, HOSTESS AT THE GRANDS MULETS STATION.]

At the height of twelve thousand feet we came upon the Petit Plateau, a
comparatively horizontal lap of snow which is frequently swept clear
across with avalanches of ice descending from the enormous seracs that
hang like cornices upon the precipices above. The frosty splinters of a
recent downfall sparkled and crunched under our feet. It is one of the
most dangerous places on the mountain. "Men have lost their lives here
and will again lose them," is the remark of Mr. Conway, the Himalayan
climber, in describing his passage of the place. "Many times I have
crossed it," said Monsieur Vallot, the mountain meteorologist, last
summer, "but never without a sinking of the heart, and the moment we are
over the Petit Plateau I always hear my guides, trained and fearless
men, mutter, 'Once more we are out of it.'"

Knowing these things, it is needless to say that I found the Petit
Plateau keenly interesting. The menacing seracs leaned from the cliffs,
glittering icily, and threw black shadows upon the _neve_ beneath,
but suffered us to pass unmolested.

Above the Petit Plateau is a steep ascent called the Grands Montees
which taxes the breath. Having surmounted this, w