ed the Arveiron, a lordly eagle rose from a neighbouring
cliff and soared grandly over their heads, while a bright gleam of the
sinking sun shot over the white shoulders of Mont Blanc and lit up the
higher end of the valley, throwing the lower part into deeper shade by
contrast.

"There is a warning to us," said Lewis, whose chief interest in the
scene lay in the reflection of it that gleamed from Nita Horetzki's
eyes.

"Which is the warning," asked Slingsby, "the gleam of sunshine or the
eagle?"

"Both, for while the sun is going to bed behind the snow, the eagle is
doubtless going home to her eyrie, and Antoine tells me that it is full
three miles from this spot to our hotel in Chamouni."

It did not take them long to traverse that space, and ere long, like the
eagle and the sun, the whole party had retired to rest--the younger
members, doubtless, to dreamless slumber; the Professor and the Captain,
probably, to visions of theodolites and ice.

Although, however, these worthies must needs await the coming day to
have their scientific hopes realised, it would be cruel to keep our
patient reader in suspense. We may therefore note here that when, on
the following day, the theodolite was re-fixed, and the man of science
and his amateur friend had applied their respective eyes to the
telescope, they were assured beyond a doubt that the stakes _had moved_,
some more and some less, while the "Dook's nose," of course, remained
hard and fast as the rock of which it was composed. The stakes had
descended from about one to three feet during the twenty-four hours--
those near the edge having moved least and those near the centre of the
ice-river's flow having moved farthest.

Of course there was a great deal of observing with the theodolite, and
careful measuring as well as scrambling on the ice, similar to that of
the previous day; but the end of the whole was that the glacier was
ascertained to have flowed, definitely and observably down its channel,
there could be no doubt whatever about that; the thing had been clearly
proved, therefore the Professor was triumphant and the Captain, being a
reasonable man, was convinced.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

IN WHICH GILLIE IS SAGACIOUS, AN EXCURSION IS UNDERTAKEN, WONDROUS
SIGHTS ARE SEEN, AND AVALANCHES OF MORE KINDS THAN ONE ARE ENCOUNTERED.

"Susan," said Gillie, one morning, entering the private apartment of
Mrs Stoutley's maid with the confidence of a privileged friend,
fl