untain tops, and shining faintly on the edge
of the horizon.

Then the young man went in and sat down to warm his hands and feet,
while he pictured to himself every possible sort of accident. Gaspard
might have broken a leg, have fallen into a crevasse, have taken a
false step and dislocated his ankle. Perhaps he was lying on the snow,
overcome and stiff with the cold, in agony of mind, lost and perhaps
shouting for help, calling with all his might, in the silence of the
night.

But where? The mountain was so vast, so rugged, so dangerous in places,
especially at that time of the year, that it would have required ten or
twenty guides walking for a week in all directions, to find a man in
that immense space. Ulrich Kunsi, however, made up his mind to set out
with Sam, if Gaspard did not return by one in the morning; and he made
his preparations.

He put provisions for two days into a bag, took his steel
climbing-irons, tied a long, thin, strong rope round his waist and
looked to see that his iron-shod stick and his ax, which served to cut
steps in the ice, were in order. Then he waited. The fire was burning
on the hearth, the great dog was snoring in front of it, and the clock
was ticking in its case of resounding wood, as regularly as a heart
beating.

He waited, his ears on the alert for distant sounds, and shivered when
the wind blew against the roof and the walls. It struck twelve, and he
trembled. Then, as he felt frightened and shivery, he put some water on
the fire, so that he might have hot coffee before starting. When the
clock struck one he got up, woke Sam, opened the door and went off in
the direction of the Wildstrubel. For five hours he ascended, scaling
the rocks by means of his climbing-irons, cutting into the ice,
advancing continually, and occasionally hauling up the dog, who
remained below at the foot of some slope that was too steep for him, by
means of the rope. About six o'clock he reached one of the summits to
which old Gaspard often came after chamois, and he waited till it
should be day-light.

The sky was growing pale overhead, and suddenly a strange light,
springing, nobody could tell whence, suddenly illuminated the immense
ocean of pale mountain peaks, which stretched for many leagues around
him. It seemed as if this vague brightness arose from the snow itself,
in order to spread itself into space. By degrees the highest and most
distant summits assumed a delicate, fleshlike rose color