d not think. Suddenly we turned
a sharp angle and found ourselves in a curious semicircular place,
almost level and fifty or sixty feet deep in the concave, as if a great
piece had been gouged out of the mountain by the glacier which must once
have been there.

"This is a curious place," I ventured to say.

"It is," said my guide. "It is the Devil's Seat. Men have died here."

His tone was almost fierce. I accepted his explanation silently. We
passed the singular spot and once more were on the ledge, but except
in one place it was not so narrow as it had been the other side of the
Devil's Seat, and in fifteen minutes we had crossed the summit and the
path widened a little and began to descend.

"You do well," said my guide, briefly, "but not so well as Doctor John."
I was well content with being ranked a good second to the doctor just
then.

The rain had ceased, the sky had partly cleared, and, as we began to
descend, the early twilight of the northern dawn began to appear. First
the sky became a clear steel-gray and the tops of the mountains became
visible, the dark outlines beginning to be filled in, and taking on a
soft color. This lightened rapidly, until on the side facing east they
were bathed in an atmosphere so clear and transparent that they seemed
almost within a stone's throw of us, while the other side was still
left in a shadow which was so deep as to be almost darkness. The gray
lightened and lightened into pearl until a tinge of rose appeared, and
then the sky suddenly changed to the softest blue, and a little later
the snow-white mountain-tops were bathed in pink, and it was day.

I could see in the light that we were descending into a sort of upland
hollow between the snow-patched mountain-tops; below us was a lovely
little valley in which small pines and birches grew, and patches of the
green, short grass which stands for hay shone among the great bowlders.
Several little streams came jumping down as white as milk from the
glaciers stuck between the mountain-tops, and after resting in two
or three tiny lakes which looked like hand-mirrors lying in the grass
below, went bubbling and foaming on to the edge of the precipice, over
which they sprang, to be dashed into vapor and snow hundreds of feet
down. A half-dozen sheep and as many goats were feeding about in the
little valley; but I could not see the least sign of a house, except a
queer, brown structure, on a little knoll, with many gables and p