, swung round, lost self-command, let slip his
axe, and finally went head over heels, with legs and arms flying wildly.

Le Croix, half-expecting something of the kind, was prepared. He had
re-ascended the slope a short way, and received the human avalanche on
his right shoulder, was knocked down violently as a matter of course,
and the two went spinning in a heap together to the bottom.

"Not hurt, I hope?" cried Lewis, jumping up and looking at his comrade
with some anxiety.

"No, Monsieur," replied Le Croix, quietly, as he shook the snow from his
garments--"And you?"

"Oh! I'm all right. That was a splendid beginning. We shall get down
to our cave in no time at this rate."

The hunter shook his head. "It is not all glissading," he said, as they
continued the descent by clambering down the face of a precipice.

Some thousands of feet below them lay the tortuous surface of a glacier,
on which they hoped to be able to walk towards their intended
night-bivouac, but the cliffs leading to this grew steeper as they
proceeded. Some hours' work was before them ere the glacier could be
reached, and the day was already drawing towards its close. A feeling
of anxiety kept them both silent as they pushed on with the utmost
possible speed, save when it was necessary for one to direct the other
as to his foothold.

On gaining each successive ledge of the terraced hill-side, they walked
along it in the hope of reaching better ground, or another snow-slope;
but each ledge ended in a precipice, so that there was no resource left
but to scramble down to the ledge below to find a similar
disappointment. The slopes also increased, rather than decreased, in
steepness, yet so gradually, that the mountaineers at last went dropping
from point to point down the sheer cliffs without fully realising the
danger of their position. At a certain point they came to the head of a
slope so steep, that the snow had been unable to lie on it, and it was
impossible to glissade on the pure ice. It was quite possible, however,
to cut foot-holes down. Le Croix had with him a stout Manilla rope of
about three hundred feet in length. With this tied round his waist, and
Lewis, firmly planted, holding on to it, he commenced the staircase.
Two blows sufficed for each step, yet two hours were consumed before the
work was finished. Re-ascending, he tied the rope round Lewis, and thus
enabled him to descend with a degree of confidence which he co