n every couloir.
Jesting apart, you are absolutely safe with Barth and me, not to
mention the irrepressible gentleman who carries our provisions."

Helen was fully alive to the fact that a woman who joins a
mountaineering party should not impose her personal doubts on men who
are willing to go on. She flourished her ice ax bravely, and cried,
"Excelsior!"

In the next instant she regretted her choice of expression. The moral
of Longfellow's poem might be admirable, but the fate of its hero was
unpleasantly topical. Again Bower laughed.

"Ah!" he said. "Will you deny now that I am a first rate receiver of
wireless messages?"

She had no breath left for a quip. Barth was hurrying, and the thin
air was beginning to have its effect. When an unusually smooth stretch
of ice permitted her to take her eyes from the track for a moment she
looked back to learn the cause of such haste. To her complete
astonishment, the Maloja Pass and the hills beyond it were dissolved
in a thick mist. A monstrous cloud was sweeping up the Orlegna Valley.
As yet, it was making for the Muretto Pass rather than the actual
ravine of the Forno; but a few wraiths of vapor were sailing high
overhead, and it needed no weatherwise native to predict that ere long
the glacier itself would be covered by that white pall. She glanced at
Bower.

He smiled cheerfully. "It is nothing," he murmured.

"I really don't care," she said. "One does not shirk an adventure
merely because it is disagreeable. The pity is that all this lovely
sunshine must vanish."

"It will reappear. You will be charmed with the novelty in an hour or
less."

"Is it far to the hut?"

"Hardly twenty minutes at our present pace."

A growl from Barth stopped their brief talk. Another huge crevasse
yawned in front. There was an ice bridge, with snow, like others they
had crossed; but this was a slender structure, and the leader stabbed
it viciously with the butt of his ax before he ventured on it. The
others kept the rope taut, and he crossed safely. They followed. As
Helen gained the further side she heard Bower's chuckle:

"Another thrill!"

"I am growing quite used to them," she said.

"Well, it may help somewhat if I tell you that the temporary departure
of the sun will cause this particular bridge to be ten times as strong
when we return."

"Attention!" cried Barth, taking a sharp turn to the left. The meaning
of his warning was soon apparent. They had to descend a few f