eet of
rough ice, and Helen found, to her great relief it must be confessed,
that they were approaching the lateral moraine. Already the sky was
overcast. The glacier had taken to itself a cold grayness that was
disconcerting. The heavy mist fell on them with inconceivable
rapidity. Shining peaks and towering precipices of naked rock were
swept out of sight each instant. The weather had changed with a
magical speed. The mist advanced with the rush of an express train,
and a strong wind sprang up as though it had burst through a
restraining wall and was bent on overwhelming the daring mortals who
were penetrating its chosen territory.

Somehow--anyhow--Helen scrambled on. She was obliged to keep eyes and
mind intent on each step. Her chief object was to imitate Barth, to
poise, and jump, and clamber with feet and hands exactly as he did. At
this stage the rope was obviously a hindrance; but none of the men
suggested its removal, and Helen had enough to occupy her wits without
troubling them by a question. Even in the stress of her own breathless
exertions she had room in her mind for a wondering pity for the
heavily laden Karl. She marveled that anyone, be he strong as Samson,
could carry such a load and not fall under it. Yet he was lumbering
along behind Bower with a clumsy agility that was almost supernatural
to her thinking. She was still unconscious of the fact that most of
her own struggles were due more to the rarefied air than to the real
difficulties of the route.

At last, when she really thought she must cry out for a rest, when a
steeper climb than any hitherto encountered had bereft her almost of
the power to take another upward spring to the ledge of some enormous
boulder, when her knees and ankles were sore and bruised, and the
skin of her fingers was beginning to fray under her stout gloves, she
found herself standing on a comparatively level space formed of broken
stones. A rough wall, surmounted by a flat pitched roof, stared at her
out of the mist. In the center of the wall a small, square, shuttered
window suggested a habitation. Her head swam, and her eyes ached
dreadfully; but she knew that this was the hut, and strove desperately
to appear self possessed.

"Accept my congratulations, Miss Wynton," said a low voice at her ear.
"Not one woman in a thousand would have gone through that last
half-hour without a murmur. You are no longer a novice. Allow me to
present you with the freedom of the Alps