this was
a sharp ridge, like the roof of a church, and that we should go down
directly off the snow."

"Patience, herr," said Melchior. "Come along, then. It is colder up
here. See how low the sun is, and feel how hard the snow becomes."

Saxe glanced at the great ruddy glow in the west, and saw how the
different peaks had flashed up into brilliant light; he noted, too, that
if he trod lightly, his feet hardly went through the crust on the snow.

"Why, it's beginning to freeze!" he cried suddenly.

"Yes, herr; on this side it is freezing hard. On the other side it will
be soft yet. That is the south."

They went on for three or four hundred yards, over what seemed to be a
level plain of snow, but which they knew from what they had seen below,
hung in a curve from the dazzling snow peaks on either hand, and to be
gracefully rounded south and north.

So gradual was the descent that nothing was visible of the valley for
which they were making; and Saxe was just about to attack the guide
about his declaration respecting the short time after reaching the top
of the col before they would be at tea, when Melchior suddenly stopped,
and as Saxe joined him where he stood, the snow ran down suddenly,
steeply, and with a beautiful curve into a tiny valley, whose floor was
green, with a silver rivulet winding through it, and several clumps of
dwarfed pines turning it into quite a park.

"There is our resting-place, herr," he said, "with a perfect bit of snow
for a glissade."

"What, slide down the snow!" cried Saxe. "To be sure! Shall I be able
to stop myself! I don't want to go rolling down into that water like a
ball."

"Come behind me," said Dale quietly; "I'll show you how. Stand up as I
do, and hold your alpenstock behind you like this. Some people say it
is wrong, but I always get on so."

He pressed his alpenstock into the snow behind him, holding it under his
left arm with both hands; and leaning back upon it, he waited till Saxe
had imitated him exactly.

"If you find you are going down too fast, lean back more, so as to drive
your pike down into the snow. Try and keep your balance. If you go
over, hold on to your alpenstock and try to stop yourself the best way
you can. Ready?"

"Yes."

"Then off! Steady, slowly, as you can. There's no hurry."

"Well, I don't want to hurry," muttered Saxe, as he began to glide down
the beautiful sloping curve, with the crisp large-grained snow hissing
and