d storm of a million years or more. This block-and-socket
arrangement of Nature is, generally speaking, one of the least
interesting of mountain forms, and its crudity was the more noticeable
as we were fresh from the soaring pinnacles and stupendous pyramids of
Switzerland. But Mont Revard is the perfection of its type; and as we
plodded in single file up the threadlike path wound round the
mountain (Joseph and Innocentina in front, driving the animals), my
respect for Revard increased with each steeply ascending step.

Aromatic-scented branches brushed our faces, and we had to part them
before we could pass on. Then they flew back into their accustomed
places, resenting our intrusion by shaking over us a shower of
fragrant dew. The path, which was always narrow, had fallen away a
little here and there, for it is no one's business to repair it now,
since the making of the railway has turned pilgrims into tourists.
There was just room for man or beast to walk without danger, but so
sheer were the descents below us, so great the drop, that a woman
might have been pardoned a few tremors. "It's a good thing you're not
a girl," said I to the Little Pal, across my shoulder, holding back a
particularly obstinate branch which would have liked to push us over
the precipice, with its lean black arm. "You would be screaming, and I
shouldn't know what to do for you."

"Not if I were an American girl," he replied, bristling with
patriotism.

"Is your sister plucky?"

"As plucky as I am; but perhaps that's not saying much. So you're glad
I'm not a girl?"

"I wouldn't metamorphose you, and lose my comrade. Still, if your
sister were like you, and not an heiress, I should----"

"You would--what?"

"Like to meet her. But she would probably detest me, and wonder how
her brother could have endured my society for weeks on end."

I was looking back, as I spoke, at the Boy, who was close behind, when
suddenly his smile seemed to freeze, and springing forward he caught
me by the coat sleeve.

"What's the matter?" I asked, for he was pale under the brown tan.

For an instant he did not answer. Then, with his lips trembling
slightly, he smiled again. "I thought you were going to be killed,
that's all," said he, "so I stopped you. You were looking back at me,
but I saw that--that you were just going to tread on a stone which
Fanny had loosened with her hoof as she passed. If you had stepped
there, before you could regain your balan