"

"Time always seems long when we are in trouble. Now then, do you feel
safer?"

"Oh yes," cried Saxe; and there was a complete change in his tone. "I
can hold on now."

"Of course you can. Pretty sort of an Alpine hand you are, to give up
without thinking of your tools!"

"Yes, I had forgotten my axe."

"You'll forget your head next, sir. Now, tell me: how am I to get the
rope up to you?"

"Can you throw it?"

"No, I can't; nor you neither. Now, if you had been carrying it instead
of me, how easy it would be! Of course you have not got that ball of
string with you?"

"No," said Saxe sadly.

"No one should travel without a knife and a bit of string in his pocket;
and yet, if you had a bit of string, it would not be long enough. Now,
what's to be done?"

"I don't know," cried Saxe.

"That shows you are only an apprentice at mountaineering yet. I do
know."

"You can see a way to get me down, sir?" said Saxe joyously.

"Yes: two ways. One is quick, short and dangerous."

"More dangerous than being as I am?"

"Yes, much; but for me, not you. The other will take longer, but it is
safe."

"Then try that way," said Saxe eagerly; for he had quite recovered his
nerve now, and would have been ready to jump to right or left had he
been told.

"No, my lad; you are tired, and in an awkward place. My second way
might fail too. It was to tear up my handkerchief and make it into a
string to throw up to you, so that you could afterwards draw up the
rope. No: my string might break. But I am as foolish as you are, and
as wanting in resource. There," he continued, after a few moments'
pause, "what a boaster I am! I did not even think of cutting a piece
off the rope, unravelling it, and making it into a string."

"Yes, you could easily make that into a string," said Saxe anxiously.

"No, that would be a pity," said Dale; "and a practised climber ought
not to think of such a thing. I ought," he said, scanning the rock
carefully, "to be able to get up there above you, fasten the rope to
some block, and then let it down to you."

"No, don't do that!" cried Saxe excitedly: "it is so easy to get up, and
so hard to get down."

"Not with a rope," said Dale cheerily. "Let's see. Suppose I join you
the way you came, and jump to you? Is there room for both?"

"No, no!" cried Saxe excitedly.

"Well, if I climb out to where you jumped, I can hand you the rope, you
can pass it round the ice-axe, and