e, if not fatal. He instanced your
own tendency to go roving about among the glaciers _alone_. With a
comrade or a guide attached to you by a rope there is no danger worth
speaking of, but it must be as clear to you as it is to me that it when
out on the mountains alone, you step on a snow-covered crevasse and
break through, your instant death is inevitable."

"Yes, but," objected Lewis, with that unwillingness to be convinced
which is one of the chief characteristics of youth, "I always walk, when
_alone_ on the glaciers, with the utmost caution, sounding the snow in
front of me with the long handle of my axe at every step as I go."

"If the guides do not find this always a sufficient protection for
themselves, by what amazing power of self-sufficiency do you persuade
yourself that it is sufficient for _you_?" demanded Lawrence.

"Your question suffices, Doctor," said Lewis, laughing; "go on with your
lecture, I'm all attention and, and humility."

"Not my lecture," retorted Lawrence, "the guide's. He was very strong,
I assure you, on the subject of men going on the high glaciers _without
a rope_, or, which comes to the same thing, _alone_, and he was not less
severe on those who are so foolhardy, or so ignorant, as to cross steep
slopes of ice on new-fallen snow. Nothing is easier, the new snow
affording such good foothold, as you told us the other day when
describing your adventures under the cliffs of Monte Rosa, and yet
nothing is more dangerous, says Antoine, for if the snow were to slip,
as it is very apt to do, you would be smothered in it, or swept into a
crevasse by it. Lives are lost in the Alps _every year_, I am told,
owing to indifference to these two points. The guides say--and their
opinions are corroborated by men of science and Alpine experience--that
it is dangerous to meddle with any slope exceeding 30 degrees for
several days after a heavy fall, and yet it is certain that slopes
exceeding this angle are traversed annually by travellers who are
ignorant, or reckless, or both. Did you not say that the slope which
you crossed the other day was a steeper angle than this, and the snow on
it not more than twenty-four hours' old?"

"Guilty!" exclaimed Lewis, with a sigh.

"I condemn you, then," said Lawrence, with a smile, "to a continuation
of this lecture, and, be assured, the punishment is much lighter than
you deserve. Listen:--There are three unavoidable dangers in Alpine
climbing--"