g in appearance all the wooden hostelries of the High Alps
situated at the foot of glaciers in the barren rocky gorges that
intersect the summits of the mountains, the Inn of Schwarenbach serves as
a resting place for travellers crossing the Gemini Pass.

It remains open for six months in the year and is inhabited by the family
of Jean Hauser; then, as soon as the snow begins to fall and to fill the
valley so as to make the road down to Loeche impassable, the father and
his three sons go away and leave the house in charge of the old guide,
Gaspard Hari, with the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, and Sam, the great
mountain dog.

The two men and the dog remain till the spring in their snowy prison,
with nothing before their eyes except the immense white slopes of the
Balmhorn, surrounded by light, glistening summits, and are shut in,
blocked up and buried by the snow which rises around them and which
envelops, binds and crushes the little house, which lies piled on the
roof, covering the windows and blocking up the door.

It was the day on which the Hauser family were going to return to Loeche,
as winter was approaching, and the descent was becoming dangerous. Three
mules started first, laden with baggage and led by the three sons. Then
the mother, Jeanne Hauser, and her daughter Louise mounted a fourth mule
and set off in their turn and the father followed them, accompanied by
the two men in charge, who were to escort the family as far as the brow
of the descent. First of all they passed round the small lake, which was
now frozen over, at the bottom of the mass of rocks which stretched in
front of the inn, and then they followed the valley, which was dominated
on all sides by the snow-covered summits.

A ray of sunlight fell into that little white, glistening, frozen desert
and illuminated it with a cold and dazzling flame. No living thing
appeared among this ocean of mountains. There was no motion in this
immeasurable solitude and no noise disturbed the profound silence.

By degrees the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, a tall, long-legged Swiss, left
old man Hauser and old Gaspard behind, in order to catch up the mule
which bore the two women. The younger one looked at him as he approached
and appeared to be calling him with her sad eyes. She was a young,
fairhaired little peasant girl, whose milk-white cheeks and pale hair
looked as if they had lost their color by their long abode amid the ice.
When he had got up to the animal