six or seven feet away. Above was the over-arching snow, which
looked fragile in the extreme.

Far below him as he fell he heard the snow and ice he had broken away go
hissing and whispering down for what seemed long after he had dropped;
and this gave him some idea of the terrible depth of the ice crack, and
a cold chill, that was not caused by the icy coldness of the place, ran
through him, as he wondered whether the rope, which now looked thin and
worn, would hold. Then he thought that it might possibly cut against
the sharp edge, and after a sharp glance upward, to see nothing but the
blue sky, he could not keep from looking down into the black depths and
listening to the faint musical gurgle of running water.

He shuddered as he slowly turned, and then strained his ears to try and
make out what his companion and the guide were doing. But he could hear
nothing for some minutes. Then there was a vibration of the rope, and a
slight jerking sensation, and to his horror he found that he was being
lowered down.

Saxe was as brave as most boys of his years, but this was too much for
him. It struck him at first that he was being lowered; but the next
moment it seemed to be so much without reason that he jumped to the
conclusion that the rope was slowly unravelling and coming to pieces.

An absurd notion, but in the supreme moments of great danger people
sometimes think wild things.

He was just in the agony of this imagination, when the small patch of
light twenty feet above him was darkened, and he saw the head and
shoulders of Melchior, as the man, trusting to the strain upon the rope
maintained by Dale, leaned forward.

"Can you help yourself at all?" he said quietly.

"No, no!" cried Saxe hoarsely.

"Be cool, my lad," said Melchior. "I shall drive the head of my axe
into the ice, and leave the handle so that you can grasp it when you are
drawn up."

Saxe made no reply, but he heard a dull sound, and directly after the
rope began to move, and he knew by the jerks that it was being hauled in
hand-over-hand by the guide.

A minute later, and the lad's head was level with the snow, and he saw
the handle of the ice-axe, which he grasped. But it was almost
needless, for Melchior caught him by the portion of the rope which was
round his chest, and by a quick exercise of his great strength raised
him right out of the crevasse, to stand trembling there, as Dale now ran
up and grasped his hand.

"Saxe, my b