For a few days, herr. You have peaks all round which you can climb.
There is the glacier, and there are bare mountain precipices and
crevices where you may find that of which you are in search."

"Yes," said Dale, as he looked back out of the narrow opening of the
gash in the mountain which the guide had chosen for their shelter; "I
think this place will do."

"Then the herr is satisfied?"

"Well, yes, for the present. Now, then, leave what you are doing, and
we'll descend to the glacier at once."

"Yes, herr. One moment. I'll hang up the lanthorn and the new English
rope here. The glass may be kicked against and broken."

He suspended the English-made stout glass lanthorn to the little
ridge-pole; and then, resuming his jacket, he threw the coil of rope
over his shoulder, took his ice-axe, Dale and Saxe taking theirs, all
new and bright, almost as they had left the manufacturer's, and started
at once for the shelf from which the grand view of the snow-clad
mountains had met their gaze. After proceeding along this a short
distance, Melchior stopped, climbed out upon a projecting point, and
examined the side of the precipice.

"We can get down here, herr," he said; and, setting the example, he
descended nimbly from ledge to ledge, pausing at any difficult place to
lend a hand or point out foothold, till they were half-way down, when
the ledges and crevices by which they had descended suddenly ceased, and
they stood upon a shelf from which there seemed to be no further
progression, till, as if guided by the formation, Melchior crept to the
very end, peered round an angle of the rock, and then came back.

"No," he said--"not that way: the other end."

He passed his two companions, and, going to the farther part, climbed up
a few feet, and then passed out of their sight.

"This way, gentlemen!" he shouted; and upon joining him they found that
he had hit upon quite an easy descent to the ice.

This proved to be very different to the glacier they had first examined.
It was far more precipitous in its descent, with the consequence that
it was greatly broken up into blocks, needles and overhanging seracs.
These were so eaten away beneath that it seemed as if a breath would
send them thundering down.

"Not very safe--eh, Melchior?" said Dale.

"No, herr; we must not venture far from the edge."

This vast glacier had also shrunk, leaving from ten to twenty feet of
smoothly polished rock at the side--that is,