k two thousand feet below.

As we topped the Col du Dragon the day broke, and lighted up the white
peaks in front of us with a pink glow. The vast snow-capped range of the
Alpes Maritimes was stretched out before us like a panorama--behind us
the Mediterranean lay in a blue and perfect peace. The air was cool and
clear as spring water.

Alphonse Giraud pulled off his hat as he looked around him.

"Blessed Name," he cried, "what a world the good God made when He was
busy with it."

Our horses threw up their heads, and answered to the voice with a
willingness that made us wish we had a shorter journey before us.

At St. Jean de la Riviere we rested them for fifteen minutes. The
villagers were already astir, and we learnt that we had as yet gained
only half an hour on the diligence.

There was no doubt about the road now, for we were enclosed in a
narrow valley, with only the great thoroughfare built above the river,
and that not too securely. We made good speed, and soon sighted
Venanson, a queer village perched above all vegetation on the spur of
a mountain.

At a turn of the road we seemed suddenly to quit France, and wheel
into Switzerland. The air was Alpine, and the vegetation that of the
higher valleys there. It was near seven o'clock when we approached St.
Martin Lantosque, a quaint brown village of wood, clustering around a
domed church.

We soon found the Hotel des Alpes, which was but a sorry inn of no
great cleanliness. The proprietor, a white-faced man, watched us
descend without enthusiasm.

"What time did the diligence come in?" I asked him.

"These gentlemen have ridden," he said pleasantly.

He was joined at this moment by a person who seemed to be a waiter,
though he was clad more like a stable help.

I repeated my question at a shout, and the attendant, placing his lips
against the innkeeper's ear, issued another edition of it in a voice
that awakened an echo far across the vale, and startled the tired
horses.

"The patron is deaf," explained the servant.

"You don't say so," I answered.

We gave these people up as hopeless, and Alphonse had the brilliant
idea of applying at the post-office across the way. Here we found an
intelligent man. Miste had arrived by the diligence. He had sent a
telegram to Genoa. He had posted a letter; and, after a hurried
breakfast at the hotel, he had set off half an hour ago by the bridle
path to the Col di Finestra, alone and on foot.

Chapter