ering down at them from among some stones which had fallen
upon a ledge.

But the glimpse was only instantaneous, and as he looked he felt that he
could not be sure, and that it might be one of the blocks of lichened
stones that he had taken for a face.

They went on slowly and more slowly, for the path grew so difficult that
it was easy to imagine that no one had ever been along there before, and
Saxe said so.

"Oh yes," said Melchior; "I have often been along here. It has been my
business these many years to go everywhere and find strange wild places
in the mountains. The men, too, who hunt the chamois and the bear--"

"Eh? what?" cried Saxe, plucking up his ears. "Bears! There are no
bears here."

"Oh yes," said the guide, smiling. "Not many; but there are bears in
the mountains. I have seen them several times, and the ibex too, more
to the south, on the Italian slope."

"Shall we see them?"

"You may, herr. Perhaps we shall come across a chamois or two to-day,
far up yonder in the distance."

"Let's get on, then," said Saxe eagerly. "But hallo! how are we to get
the mule up that pile of rocks?"

"That!" said the guide quietly; "he will climb that better than we
shall."

He was right, for the sure-footed creature breasted the obstacle of a
hundred feet of piled-up blocks very coolly, picking his way patiently,
and with a certainty that was surprising.

"Why, the mule is as active as a goat!" cried Dale.

"Well, not quite, herr," said Melchior. "But, as I said, you will find
that he will go anywhere that we do, except upon the ice. There he
loses his footing at once, and the labour is too great to cut steps for
an animal like that."

The great pile of loose blocks was surmounted, and at the top Saxe stood
and saw that it was evidently the remains of a slip from the mountain up
to their right, which had fallen perhaps hundreds of years before, and
blocked up the narrow gorge, forming a long, deep, winding lake in the
mountain solitude.

"Fish? Oh yes--plenty," said the guide, "and easily caught; but they
are very small. There is not food enough for them to grow big and
heavy, as they do in the large lakes."

"Well," said Dale, after a few minutes' study of their surroundings,
"this is wild and grand indeed. How far does the lake run up there? Of
course it winds round more at the other end!"

"Yes, herr, for miles; and gets narrower, till it is like a river."

"Grand indeed; but it i