ature avalanche; and when the muleteer, also observing
the missile, added a hideous howl to the chorus, the poor urchin shrank
back appalled. The rock struck the track directly behind the mule with
a force which, had it been expended only six inches more to the right,
would have driven that creature's hind legs into the earth as if they
had been tenpenny nails; it then bounded clear over the next turning of
the track, crashed madly through several bushes, overturned five or six
trees, knocked into atoms a sister rock which had taken the same leap
some ages before, and finally, leaving behind it a grand tail of dust
and _debris_, rolled to its rest upon the plain.

At the first symptom of the danger, Captain Wopper had rushed towards
the culprit.

"Rascal!" he growled between his teeth, as he seized Gillie by the nape
of the neck, lifted him almost off his legs, and shook him, "d'ee see
what you've done?"

He thrust the urchin partially over the precipice, and pointed to the
man and the mule.

"Please, I _haven't_ done it," pleaded Gillie.

"But you did your best to--you--you small--there!"

He finished off the sentence with an open-handed whack that aroused the
echoes of Mont Blanc, and cast the culprit adrift.

"Now, look 'ee, lad," said the Captain, with impressive solemnity, "if
you ever go to chuck stones like that over the precipices of this here
mountain again, I'll chuck you over after 'em. D'ee hear?"

"Yes, Cappen," grumbled Gillie, rubbing himself, "but if you do, it's
murder. No jury of Englishmen would think of recommendin' you to mercy
in the succumstances. You'd be sure to swing--an' I--I could wish you a
better fate."

The Captain did not wait to hear the boy's good wishes, but hastened to
rejoin his friends, while Gillie followed in rear, commenting audibly on
the recent incident.

"Well, well," he said, thrusting both hands deep into bush
trouser-pockets, according to custom when in a moralising frame of mind,
"who'd a thought it, Gillie White, that you'd 'ave bin brought all the
way from London to the Halps to make such a close shave o' committin'
man-slaughter to say nothin' of mule-slaughter, and to git whacked by
your best friend? Oh! Cappen, Cappen, I couldn't 'ave believed it of
you if I 'adn't felt it. But, I say, Gillie, _wasn't_ it a big 'un?
Ha! ha! The Cappen threatened to chuck me over the precipice, but I've
chucked over a wopper that beats _him_ all to sticks. Hallo!