me the wind increased its violence, and the cold
became more penetrating. I pulled my fingers out of the digits of my
woollen gloves, and gripped my iron-shod baton between thumb and
knuckles. We now had our bearings, thanks to the momentary glance, and
it behooved us not to lose them, for the storm was every instant growing
worse. At times it was not the simplest thing in the world to keep one's
feet in the face of the blasts. I was too fresh from reading the history
of Mont Blanc not to remember that a few years ago Count Villanova and
two guides were blown from another nearby ridge into the very abyss
whose jaws had just opened before us, where their bodies lie
undiscovered to this day.

Moving cautiously, we began to descend, in order to cross the neck which
stretches between the Dome du Gouter and the Bosses. When we wandered a
little to the right the surface commenced to pitch off, and we knew what
that meant--beware! Once when we had veered too far to the left,
staggering down hill under the blows of the storm, and able to see but a
few feet away, we stopped as if a shot had arrested us. Another step or
two would have carried us over a precipice of ice, whose blue wall fell
perpendicularly from the brittle edge at our feet into cloud-choked
depths. We had gone down our roof to the eaves. Not a word was spoken,
but with instant unanimity we turned and scrambled up again, Couttet in
the lead, and the porter breathing hard at my heels. Such a scene in the
fraction of a second is photographed on the memory for a lifetime.

In a little while we began to ascend another slope, to which we had felt
our way, and this was surely the swelling hump of the first of the
Bosses, and the rocks must be near at hand. Another opportune gap in the
clouds, which left us for an instant surrounded with retreating walls of
vapor, confirmed that opinion, and vindicated the mountaineering skill
of Couttet, who had found the way though way there was none. A quick,
breathless scramble up a confused heap of ice and slippery points of
rock brought us at last to the refuge.

[Illustration: PASSAGE OF A CREVASSE, MONT BLANC.]

A NIGHT OF SCANT SHELTER AND NO FOOD.

Couttet shook and banged the door, making a noise that did not penetrate
far through the whistling air, and, with cold fingers, began fumbling at
the latch, when, to my surprise, the door opened and a muffled voice
bade us enter. An Englishman who had started with his guides at m