full of snow.

"We will wait a little longer," said Garratt Skinner, "then we
must move."

He looked at the sky. It seemed to him now very probable that he would
lose the desperate game which he had been playing. He had staked his life
upon it. Let the snow come and the mists, he would surely lose his stake.
Nevertheless he set himself to the task of rousing Walter Hine.

"Leave me alone," moaned Walter Hine, and he struck feebly at his
companions as they lifted him on to his feet.

"Stamp your feet, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. "You will feel better in
a few moments."

They held him up, but he repeated his cry. "Leave me alone!" and the
moment they let him go he sank down again upon the ledge. He was overcome
with drowsiness, the slightest movement tortured him.

Garratt Skinner looked up at the leaden sky.

"We must wait till help comes," he said,

Delouvain shook his head.

"It will not come to-day. We shall all die here. It was wrong, monsieur,
to try the Brenva ridge. Yes, we shall die here"; and he fell to
blubbering like a child.

"Could you go down alone?" Garratt Skinner asked.

"There is the glacier to cross, monsieur."

"I know. That is the risk. But it is cold and there is no sun. The
snow-bridges may hold."

Pierre Delouvain hesitated. Here it seemed to him was certain death. But
if he climbed down the ice-arete, the snow-slopes, and the rocks below,
if the snow-bridges held upon the glacier, there would be life for one of
the three. Pierre Delouvain had little in common with that loyal race of
Alpine guides who hold it as their most sacred tradition not to return
home without their patrons.

"Yes, it is our one hope," he said; and untying himself with awkward
fumbling fingers from the kinked rope, and coiling the spare rope about
his shoulders, he went down the slope. During the night the steps had
frozen and in many places it was necessary to recut them. He too was
stiff with the long vigil. He moved slowly, with numbed and frozen limbs.
But as his ax rose and fell, the blood began to burn in the tips of his
fingers, to flow within his veins; he went more and more firmly. For a
long way Garratt Skinner held him in sight. Then he turned back to Walter
Hine upon the ledge, and sat beside him. Garratt Skinner's strength had
stood him in good stead. He filled his pipe and lit it, and watched
beside his victim. The day wore on slowly. At times Garratt Skinner
rubbed Hine's limbs and stamped