ns in the summer to
places too cold to be inhabited all the year round, and to live there
with them in these little huts during the two or three months while the
grass was green. The men would bring up their milking pails, their pans,
their churns, their cheese presses, and their kettles for cooking, and
thus live in a sort of encampment while the grass lasted, and make
butter and cheese to carry down the mountain with them when they
returned.

At one time Rollo saw at the door of one of the huts a man with what
seemed to be a long pole in his hand. It was bent at the lower end. The
man came out of a hut, and, putting the bent end of the pole to the
ground, he brought the other up near to his mouth, and seemed to be
waiting for the travellers to come down to him.

"What is he going to do?" asked Rollo.

"He has got what we call an Alpine horn," said the guide; "and he is
going to blow it for you, to let you hear the echoes."

So, when Mr. George and Rollo reached the place, the man blew into the
end of his pole, which proved to be hollow, and it produced a very loud
sound, like that of a trumpet. The sounds were echoed against the face
of a mountain which was opposite to the place in a very remarkable
manner. Mr. George paid the man a small sum of money, and then they went
on.

Not long afterwards they came to another hut, which was situated
opposite to a part of the mountain range where there was a great
accumulation of ice and snow, that seemed to hang suspended, as it were,
as if just ready to fall. A man stood at the door of this hut with a
small iron cannon, which was mounted somewhat rudely on a block of wood,
in his hand.

"What is he going to do with that cannon?" asked Rollo.

"He is going to fire it," said Henry, "to start down the avalanches from
the mountain."

Henry here pointed to the face of the mountain opposite to where they
were standing, and showed Rollo the immense masses of ice and snow that
seemed to hang suspended there, ready to fall.

It is customary to amuse travellers in Switzerland with the story that
the concussion produced by the discharge of a gun or a cannon will
sometimes detach these masses, and thus hasten the fall of an avalanche;
and though the experiment is always tried when travellers pass these
places, I never yet heard of a case in which the effect was really
produced. At any rate, in this instance,--though the man loaded his
cannon heavily, and rammed the charge down