, without any
fresh snow. Old Gaspard spent his afternoons in watching the eagles and
other rare birds which ventured on those frozen heights, while Ulrich
returned regularly to the Gemmi Pass to look at the village. Then they
played cards, dice or dominoes and lost and won a trifle, just to create
an interest in the game.

One morning Hari, who was up first, called his companion. A moving, deep
and light cloud of white spray was falling on them noiselessly and was by
degrees burying them under a thick, heavy coverlet of foam. That lasted
four days and four nights. It was necessary to free the door and the
windows, to dig out a passage and to cut steps to get over this frozen
powder, which a twelve hours' frost had made as hard as the granite of
the moraines.

They lived like prisoners and did not venture outside their abode. They
had divided their duties, which they performed regularly. Ulrich Kunsi
undertook the scouring, washing and everything that belonged to
cleanliness. He also chopped up the wood while Gaspard Hari did the
cooking and attended to the fire. Their regular and monotonous work was
interrupted by long games at cards or dice, and they never quarrelled,
but were always calm and placid. They were never seen impatient or
ill-humored, nor did they ever use hard words, for they had laid in a
stock of patience for their wintering on the top of the mountain.

Sometimes old Gaspard took his rifle and went after chamois, and
occasionally he killed one. Then there was a feast in the inn at
Schwarenbach and they revelled in fresh meat. One morning he went out as
usual. The thermometer outside marked eighteen degrees of frost, and as
the sun had not yet risen, the hunter hoped to surprise the animals at
the approaches to the Wildstrubel, and Ulrich, being alone, remained in
bed until ten o'clock. He was of a sleepy nature, but he would not have
dared to give way like that to his inclination in the presence of the old
guide, who was ever an early riser. He breakfasted leisurely with Sam,
who also spent his days and nights in sleeping in front of the fire; then
he felt low-spirited and even frightened at the solitude, and was-seized
by a longing for his daily game of cards, as one is by the craving of a
confirmed habit, and so he went out to meet his companion, who was to
return at four o'clock.

The snow had levelled the whole deep valley, filled up the crevasses,
obliterated all signs of the two lakes and cove