daring people who would venture up into
their homes.'"

"And very dangerous those bad spirits are--eh, Melchior!" said Dale,
smiling.

"Terribly, herr," said the guide. "And you laugh. I don't wonder. But
there are plenty of our simple, uneducated people in the villages who
believe all that still. I heard it all as a child, and it took a great
deal of quiet thinking, as I grew up, before I could shake off all those
follies, and see that there was nothing to fear high up, but the ice and
wind and snow, with the dangers of the climbing. Why, fifty years ago,
if a man climbed and fell, the people thought he had been thrown down by
evil spirits. Many think so now in the out-of-the-way valleys."

"Then you are not superstitious, Melchior?"

"I hope not, herr," said the guide reverently; "but there are plenty of
my people who are, and suspicious as well. I am only an ignorant man,
but I believe in wisdom; and I have lived to see that you Englishmen
find pleasure in reading the books of the great God, written with His
finger on the mountains and in the valleys; to know how you collect the
lowliest flowers, and can show us the wonders of their shape and how
they grow. Then I know, too, how you find wonders in the great rocks,
and can show me how they are made of different stone, which is always
being ground down to come into the valleys to make them rich. I know
all this, herr; and so I do not wonder and doubt when you ask me to show
you some of the wildest places in the mountains, where you may find
crystals and see glaciers and caves scarcely any of us have ventured to
search. But if I told some of our people that you spend your money and
your time in seeking and examining all this, they would only laugh and
call me a fool. They would say, `we know better. He has blinded you.
He is seeking for gold and diamonds.' And I could not make them believe
it is all in the pursuit of--what do you call that!"

"Science?"

"Yes, science; that is the word. And in their ignorance they will
follow and watch us, if we do not take care to avoid them."

"You think, then, that some one has been following us?"

"Undoubtedly, sir; and if it is so, we shall have trouble."

"Pooh! They will, you mean. But I'm not going to worry myself about
that. There--let's get on."

Melchior gave a quick glance backward, and Saxe followed his example,
his eyes catching directly a glimpse as he thought, of a human face high
up, and pe