The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crystal Hunters, by George Manville Fenn

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Title: The Crystal Hunters
A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps

Author: George Manville Fenn

Illustrator: Fredric W. Burton

Release Date: February 4, 2008 [EBook #24516]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRYSTAL HUNTERS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Crystal Hunters, by George Manville Fenn.

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A tense tale, such as we expect of George Manville Fenn. A group of
English people are in the Swiss Alps. But it is not just the beauties
of the scenery they are after, but crystals which may sometimes be
found in caves near the top of the glaciers. They manage to find a
guide who promises to be discreet about what they do. But someone else
is on the mountain, and he is just as interested in what they are up to,
and what they find, as they are themselves.

Of course, as we expect in a Manville Fenn novel, there are tense
moments when people fall down crevasses, when there are avalanches and
ice-falls, when icy rocks break off and come tumbling towards them. But
what about the unknown person who is making off with their hard-won
specimens?

There is a surprise ending. It is a good readable book, well worth the
effort of making an audio book and listening to it.

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THE CRYSTAL HUNTERS, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.

CHAPTER ONE.

TWO MEN AND A BOY.

"Steady there! Stop! Hold hard!"

"What's the matter, Mr Dale?"

"Matter, Saxe, my boy? Well, this. I undertook to take you back to
your father and mother some day, sound in wind and limb; but if you
begin like that, the trip's over, and we shall have to start back for
England in less than a week--at least, I shall, with my luggage
increased by a case containing broken boy."

There was a loud burst of hearty laughter from the manly-looking lad
addressed, as he stood, with his hands clinging and his head twisted
round, to look back: for he had spread-eagled himself against a nearly