, finally, without a hope that they would ever see Glen Eddy
again, they sadly retraced their steps and reached camp just as the
complete darkness, that would have rendered their farther progress
impossible, shut in.

No one was more loved in that camp than Glen, and no loss from the party
could have been more keenly felt. It was with heavy hearts that they
sought their blankets that night; and, the next evening, when the
search-party, that had been out all day without finding the faintest
trace of the missing boy, returned, they talked of him in low tones as
of one who had gone from them forever.

The following morning the camp in the pass was broken, and two days
later a line had been run down the western slope of the mountains, to
the edge of the San Luis Valley, near Fort Garland--one of the most
charmingly located military posts of the West.

In the meantime Glen Eddy was not only alive and well, but, at the very
minute his companions were approaching Fort Garland he was actually
assisting to prepare the quarters of its commandant for a wedding that
was to take place in them that evening.

For a moment, after he missed his foothold on the upper edge of the
treacherous snow-field, and began to shoot down the smooth surface of
its long slope, he imagined that he was about to be dashed in pieces,
and resigned all hope of escape from the fearful peril that had so
suddenly overtaken him. Then the thought of the blue-black lake, with
its walls of purple and red-stained granite, that he had seen lying at
the foot of this very slope, flashed into his mind. A thrill shot
through him as he thought of the icy plunge he was about to take. Still,
that was better than to be hurled over a precipice. The boy had even
sufficient presence of mind to hold his feet close together, and attempt
to guide himself so that they should strike the water first.

He might have glided down that slope for seconds, or minutes, or even
hours, for all that he knew of the passage of time. He seemed to be
moving with great speed, and yet, in breathless anticipation of the
inevitable plunge that, in fancy, he felt himself to be taking with each
instant, his downward flight seemed indefinitely prolonged.

At length the suspense was ended. Almost with the quickness of thought
the boy passed into a region of dazzling sunlight, was launched into
space, and found himself sinking down, down, down, as though he would
never stop, in water so cold that it