k, so there is no place
to dig graves. Not a tree grows within seven miles of the buildings,
because it is so cold, and there is no earth for the roots. It is a
bare, desolate place at all times."

"Jan must have been bewildered, going from such a place to a home in
California," the little mother spoke. "And yet, see how he worked out
his life and made himself worthy!"

The doctor lighted a cigar and leaned back in his big chair. "The snow
at the Hospice is not like snow in other places," he finally said. "You
know how, usually, it clings in masses, and when trodden upon it packs
firmly; but in the Alps during a storm, the snow freezes as it falls and
forms into little hard pellets. These tiny lumps of ice pile up around a
traveller, and when he tries to push onward he sinks as though in a bed
of quicksand. Unless help is at hand he soon is buried out of sight. The
winds sweep fiercely through the passes between the mountain peaks, and
send terrible, whirling clouds of snow that cut the face and blind the
eyes, and many times a wanderer plunges over a precipice that he cannot
see, or worn by struggles, he sinks exhausted to die. Then, there are
the ice-bridges. What I am telling will give only a faint idea of the
importance of the work of those magnificent dogs of the Hospice. And
there is something that is not generally known, but is just as heroic.
The monks who go to the Hospice volunteer for that work, knowing fully
that five years up there in the altitude and intense cold mean
practically the end of their lives. It ruins their lungs, and so, after
a time, they go quietly down into the milder air of the Valley of the
Rhone, in France, and there they wait cheerfully during the short span
of life ahead of them. Only the young and strong monks are sent to the
Hospice."

After the doctor ceased speaking they all sat silently and watched the
blazing logs, for each of the listeners, as well as the doctor, was
thinking of the sacrifice and unselfishness of those monks, and the
brave loyalty of their dog-friends on the trail.

"I wish I had enough money to send Prince Jan back to his own work and
home," the captain said wistfully. "Maybe, though, I can manage it some
day," he added more hopefully. "I feel as if he ought to be there with
the others."

"You are right," agreed the doctor, and his wife nodded her head
quickly. "Jan's work, his kin, his home, lie back there at the Hospice.
I owe the lives of my wife and my