ross, or turned for safety
and brought them back.

In this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part whatever. He sat silently
smoking by the fire until the room was cleared and Vendale referred to
him.

"Bah! I am weary of these poor devils and their trade," he said, in
reply. "Always the same story. It is the story of their trade to-day,
as it was the story of their trade when I was a ragged boy. What do you
and I want? We want a knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each. We want
no guide; we should guide him; he would not guide us. We leave our
portmanteaus here, and we cross together. We have been on the mountains
together before now, and I am mountain-born, and I know this
Pass--Pass!--rather High Road!--by heart. We will leave these poor
devils, in pity, to trade with others; but they must not delay us to make
a pretence of earning money. Which is all they mean."

Vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and to cut the knot: active,
adventurous, bent on getting forward, and therefore very susceptible to
the last hint: readily assented. Within two hours, they had purchased
what they wanted for the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and lay
down to sleep.

At break of day, they found half the town collected in the narrow street
to see them depart. The people talked together in groups; the guides and
drivers whispered apart, and looked up at the sky; no one wished them a
good journey.

As they began the ascent, a gleam of run shone from the otherwise
unaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin spires of the town to
silver.

"A good omen!" said Vendale (though it died out while he spoke). "Perhaps
our example will open the Pass on this side."

"No; we shall not be followed," returned Obenreizer, looking up at the
sky and back at the valley. "We shall be alone up yonder."

ON THE MOUNTAIN

The road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air grew lighter and
easier to breathe as the two ascended. But the settled gloom remained as
it had remained for days back. Nature seemed to have come to a pause.
The sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by
having to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be, that
impended. The silence was as palpable and heavy as the lowering
clouds--or rather cloud, for there seemed to be but one in all the sky,
and that one covering the whole of it.

Although the light was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect was not
obscu