't it wonderful how an animal can dash at such a speed over
those dangerous places!"

"Why, it must be a chamois!" cried Saxe, in disgust at his mistake.

"Yes; and I dare say there is a little herd of them somewhere up yonder
in the mountain. Now are you ready to own that you are a little
accustomed to give rein to your imagination?"

"I suppose so," said Saxe, rather dolefully. "It seems so easy to make
mistakes."

"Yes, we all find that," said Dale merrily. "Now take another look
round, and see if you can see squalls."

"Now you are laughing at me," said Saxe resentfully. "No: I am in
earnest. Take a look round, boy, and then we'll go up the ravine and
satisfy ourselves that it is all safe, and come back after a quiet
investigation, so as to see whether there are other ways of fixing our
rope. I should like to go up higher, too, and try whether we cannot get
out on to the mountain, as I at first proposed."

Saxe swept their surroundings as well as he could, and paused to gaze at
an ice-fall on the opposite mountain, a dull, heavy peal like thunder
having announced that there had been a slip.

It was very beautiful in the bright sunshine, and looked wonderfully
like water as it plunged down into a dark-looking crack, which Dale
declared must be a huge bergschrund, between the snow and rock.

But there was no human being in sight, as far as Saxe could see; and as
soon as he had descended, they began to climb the little lateral valley
as on the previous day.

Hardly, however, had they passed out of sight, before high up on the
mountain slope, what at first sight seemed to be a bear came into sight,
creeping cautiously in and out among the stones, till it reached one of
the many ledges of a precipice, and trotted along toward the edge of the
lateral valley, over which it peered cautiously, and then drew back and
went higher, repeating the action several times, and in the distance
looking more and more bearlike in its movements, only that there was
this difference, that instead of the travellers stalking the bear, the
animal seemed to be bent on stalking them.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

WITHIN A HAIR'S BREADTH.

A long and tiresome climb over and amongst the shattered blocks which
filled the lower part of the chasm; but with the help of previous
knowledge they got along pretty quickly, till they reached the rocks
beneath the narrow opening--a place which looked so insignificant that
the wonder was that it