nd somewhere here in the mountains."

"Gold?" cried Nita, with such energy that her companions looked at her
in surprise.

"Why, Nita," exclaimed Emma, "your looks are almost as troubled and
anxious as those of Le Croix himself."

"How strange!" said Nita, musing and paying no attention to Emma's
remark. "Why does he think so?"

"Indeed, Mademoiselle, I cannot tell; but he seems quite sure of it, and
spends nearly all his time in the mountains searching for gold, and
hunting the chamois."

They parted here, and for a time Lewis tried to rally Nita about what he
styled her sympathy with the chamois-hunter, but Nita did not retort
with her wonted sprightliness; the flow of her spirits was obviously
checked, and did not return during their walk back to the hotel.

While this little incident was enacting in the valley, events of a far
different nature were taking place among the mountains, into the
solitudes of which the Professor, accompanied by Captain Wopper,
Lawrence, Slingsby, and Gillie, and led by Antoine, had penetrated for
the purpose of ascertaining the motion of a huge precipice of ice.

"You are not a nervous man, I think," said the Professor to Antoine as
they plodded over the ice together.

"No, Monsieur, not very," answered the guide, with a smile and a sly
glance out of the corners of his eyes. Captain Wopper laughed aloud at
the question, and Gillie grinned. Gillie's countenance was frequently
the residence of a broad grin. Nature had furnished him with a keen
sense of the ludicrous, and a remarkably open countenance. Human beings
are said to be blind to their own peculiarities.

If Gillie had been an exception to this rule and if he could have, by
some magical power, been enabled to stand aside and look at his own
spider-like little frame, as others saw it, clad in blue tights and
buttons, it is highly probable that he would have expired in laughing at
himself.

"I ask the question," continued the Professor, "because I mean to
request your assistance in taking measurements in a somewhat dangerous
place, namely, the ice-precipice of the Tacul."

"It is well, Monsieur," returned the guide, with another smile, "I am a
little used to dangerous places."

Gillie pulled his small hands out of the trouser-pockets in which he
usually carried them, and rubbed them by way of expressing his gleeful
feelings. Had the sentiment which predominated in his little mind been
audibly expressed, it would p