ve, and that encourages us to find
more. You can't help me if you starve yourself; and I want to get you
up to the top of one of the highest mountains about here yet."

The result was that Saxe made a very hearty breakfast; for after the
first mouthful or two, he forgot his mental troubles, and obeyed his
companion with all his might.

The meal ended, the wallet was stored with all they would require for
the day; and as Saxe arranged the contents, he looked up at his
companion.

"What is it?--something else gone?"

"No," replied Saxe: "I mean yes--gone. There will be scarcely anything
left to eat for tea when we come back, unless Melchior is here."

"Ah, yes, Melchior," said Dale, taking out his pocketbook and writing
down in German--

"Gone up the right side of the glacier. Look out for cross chipped in
the ice opposite a black ravine."

"There," he said, tearing out the leaf, "I'll put this on the big stone
by the tent door, and another stone upon it to keep it down."

He suited the action to the word; and soon after, fully equipped for
their little journey, the pair started, descended in due time to the
glacier, where the tiny streams were trickling fast in the hot sun, and
then toiled on and on through the never-wearying scenery, past the ends
of the two great, now very familiar, crevasses, and sat down at last to
a light lunch off the entrance to the black ravine.

Here, as soon as they had finished their meal, Dale lightly chipped a
cross in a piece of smooth ice, just off the entrance; while Saxe
climbed up the steep valley side a little way, threw himself down upon a
flat ledge of rock, and began to look cautiously round, scanning the
opposite side of the valley, and then up and down and up again.

"Hist!" he whispered suddenly; "don't look up. Some one watching us."

"Whereabouts?"

"Across the valley, high up to the right of some tall, rugged seracs."

Dale slowly sank down on the ice behind a great block of granite, which
must have fallen from the mountain side and been borne down upon the
glacier. The next minute he was peering carefully round from one side.

"Yes, I can see him, lad," he said; "but I don't believe that fellow
would touch a crystal if there were thousands."

"You always think these people are so honest!" cried Saxe. "Well, what
could he do with it? I never knew one of them yet who cared for
crystals. Ah! there he goes, right up over the snow. Look! look!
Saxe. Isn