eft us with no time to lose. We had
only four clear days before us.

"We'll make the ascent immediately after dinner to-morrow," said Smith.

"Right you are," replied I.

The next day arrived. Dinner was always over soon after one at the
farmhouse, and by two o'clock, having slipped quietly and secretly off,
we were beginning our climb up the hillside. For more than an hour we
made slow but easy progress, taking a rest every now and then for a
minute or two. We must have got up a considerable distance, but neither
the mountain-top nor the Eagles' Home seemed much nearer. On and up we
trudged, walking faster and determined to take no more rests. We noticed
how much colder it was, and cast uneasy glances at the dipping sun.

We met a shepherd going down, and stopped him to ask some questions. He
told us that there was an easy way and a hard way to reach the Eagles'
Home. The easy way was to follow the path worn up the hill to the left.
That would take us _above_ the spot. Still following the path as it
curved round to the right, we should find a comparatively easy way down
to the "home of the eagles," unless we lost the road, and tumbled down
one of the many steep declivities.

"Which was the hard way?" we asked.

With a smile, he pointed straight up the mountain-side. It wasn't far
that way, he said--only that way would take us farther than we wanted to
go. We looked up the frowning pathless mountain--and knew what he meant.
We must take the safer and longer way.

"Not that we're _afraid_ of the other," said Smith.

"Of course not," I replied.

In vain the shepherd tried to dissuade us from going any further in the
failing light: in vain he told us of the dangers we should run. We
thanked him, put him off with some excuse about going "a little"
further, and turned resolutely on up the "path" he had pointed us to. It
was by no means the sort of path we were accustomed to.

On and on and on--I don't know how far we went. But the farther we went
the more silent we became. Each knew the other knew that he was getting
more and more uneasy at every step. Each knew the other wasn't going to
be the first to admit that he was funky.

It grew so awfully cold. It became so awfully dark.

"The moon will be up by-and-by," Smith said.

"Yes," said I; "we shall be all right then. What's this?"

It was too dark to see it, but we felt it in our faces. We put our hands
on our sleeves and felt it there.

Snow!

We both