his head, called upon him to
heave.

Then began a slow, patient struggle, with Saxe tugging at the cross-bar
formed by his ice-axe, till it bent more and more into a bow, while
Melchior brought his powerful muscles to bear in a steady strain, till
Saxe gasped forth--

"No, no! Stop!"

"Did I hurt you?" said Melchior.

"Only seemed as if you were pulling me right in two," groaned the boy.
"It's of no use; you can't get me out."

"I can, and I will," said the guide firmly.

"I would go on cutting you out, only it would take so many hours, and I
am afraid--"

"Of what?" said Saxe faintly, and speaking more for the sake of gaining
time than anything else, so terrible had the strain been for him.

"I am afraid of loosening the snow and starting it again by my blows,"
replied Melchior. "It takes so little sometimes to begin an avalanche,
and we know how the snow hangs lightly on this side of the mountain."

"Yes," said Saxe, with his eyes half-closed.

"And he would be dead long before I could get him out," said Melchior to
himself. "Poor boy! He could not last for hours frozen in like that."

Saxe opened his eyes again, and looked up at the guide wildly.

"Never mind me now," he said: "go and find Mr Dale."

Melchior shook his head.

"No: my duty is here, herr, and I must get you out. As soon as you can
bear it I must try again."

"But I can't bear it. You can never get me out."

"We shall see," cried the guide cheerily. "Come: you are upset. Where
is your what you English call pluck?"

This was said in a tone in which there seemed to be so much contempt,
that Saxe gazed at the man resentfully, and seizing the cross-bar again
he cried--

"Try again!"

The guide smiled as soon as he was not noticed, and then bending down
once more the strain began again, and was carried on till Melchior
himself gave in.

"We must rest once more, herr," he said, as he removed his arms; and
then, as Saxe made no sign, he looked down excitedly in the boy's face,
to see that his eyes were closed and that he was quite inanimate.

"Poor boy!" he said tenderly: "that sneer at his courage made him fight
till he could do no more."

The guide stood upright now, breathing hard as if to inhale fresh
strength; and then gathering himself together, he bent down again.

"Better now, while he is insensible," he muttered.

This time he got himself down lower, and his arms so far round Saxe that
he was able to hook his ha