is. "Now, how are you? Can you get up and
walk?"

"Oh, yes, herr; and the sooner the better, for I am wet, and it is so
cold: I am nearly benumbed."

"Here, let's help you," cried Dale, and he and Saxe passed their arms
under the poor fellow's shoulders and raised him up.

"Thank you--thank you!" he said. "It is the cold that makes me so
helpless. Let me sit on that block for a few minutes while you coil up
the ropes."

This was done; and then the question arose--whereabouts on the glacier
were they?

"I think I know," said the guide, rather feebly.

"Yes: but you are not fit to move," said Saxe.

"I must move, young herr," replied the man sadly. "To stay as I am
means a terrible illness, perhaps death. But I shall fight it down.
The movement will send life into me. Now, have you the axes? Please to
give me mine, and I shall creep along. We must get to the tent and a
fire somehow."

"But you cannot lead, Melchior."

"I will lead, herr," he replied, as he rested on Saxe's shoulder. "Here
in the mountains man must exert himself if he wishes to live. This
way."

To the astonishment of both he used his ice-axe as a walking-stick,
holding it by the steel head, striking the spike at the end of the
handle into the slippery floor, and walking slowly but steadily on along
the edge of the crevasse.

Saxe felt a strong inclination to go back and peer down into the black
depths again, but he had to resist it, and, carrying the lanthorn, he
followed close behind Melchior, with one hand raised, ready to snatch at
him if he seemed disposed to fall.

It was very dark now, and the light from the lanthorn was reflected in a
faint, sickly way from the ghostly-looking masses of ice as they
threaded their way onward, the guide whispering to them to be silent and
careful, as many of the huge pinnacles were unsteady.

But, in spite of their cautious procedure, one mass tottered over and
came down with an awful crash just as Dale had passed; and the falling
of this meant the destruction of a couple of others, the noise of their
splintering raising an echo in the narrow gorge which ran upward
reverberating like thunder.

Melchior did not speak, but hurried on, and, turning the end of the
crevasse, led them diagonally off the ice and down into the narrow stony
way between it and the walls of the valley.

Here he let himself sink down on a smooth slope of rock, to remain
seated for a moment or two and then lie righ