lmost as perpendicular as a wall; we are between
two precipices, down which even the boldest cannot look without a shudder.
The incline, moreover, is rapid, and from time to time we come to places
where the ridge is so broken and insecure that we have to dismount, let
our mules go first, and creep after them on our hands.

At the head of the file is an Indian who rides the _madrina_ (a mare) and
acts as guide, next come Gondocori, myself and Gahra, followed by the
other mounted Indians, three or four baggage-mules, and two men on foot.

We have been going thus nearly an hour, when a sudden and portentous
change sets in. Murky clouds gather round the higher summits and shut out
the sun, a thick mist settles down on the ridge, and in a few minutes we
are folded in a gloom hardly less dense than midnight darkness.

"Halt!" shouts the guide.

"What shall we do?" I ask the cacique, whom, though he is but two yards
from me, I cannot see.

"Nothing. We can only wait here till the mist clears away," he shouts in a
muffled voice.

"And how soon may that be?"

"_Quien Sabe?_ Perhaps a few minutes, perhaps hours."

Hours! To stand for hours, even for one hour, immovable in that mist on
that ridge would be death. Since the sun disappeared the cold had become
keener than ever. The blood seems to be freezing in my veins, my beard is
a block of ice, icicles are forming on my eyelids.

If this goes on--a gleam of light! Thank Heaven, the mist is lifting, just
enough to enable me to see Gondocori and the guide. They are quite white.
It is snowing, yet so softly as not to be felt, and as the fog melts the
flakes fall faster.

"Let us go on," says Gondocori. "Better roll down the precipice than be
frozen to death. And if we stop here much longer, and the snow continues,
the pass beyond will be blocked, and then we must die of hunger and cold,
for there is no going back."

So we move on, slowly and noiselessly, amid the fast-falling snow, like a
company of ghosts, every man conscious that his life depends on the
sagacity and sure-footedness of his mule. And it is wonderful how wary the
creatures are. They literally feel their way, never putting one foot
forward until the other is firmly planted. But the snow confuses them.
More than once my mule slips dangerously, and I am debating within myself
whether I should not be safer on foot, when I hear a cry in front.

"What is it?" I ask Gondocori, for I cannot see past him.

"The