the holy mass had to be celebrated.

When they heard the bell announcing the Holy Transsubstantiation, all
those crossing the Sider meadow sank upon their knees in the snow and
prayed. When the tolling had ceased they arose and marched on.

The shoemaker was carrying his little girl for the most part and made
her tell him all.

When they were descending toward the forest of the "neck" they saw
tracks which, he declared, came not from shoes of his make.

The explanation came soon. Attracted probably by the many voices they
heard, another body of men joined them. It was the dyer--ash-gray in the
face from fright--descending at the head of his workmen, apprentices,
and several men of Millsdorf.

"They climbed over the glacier and the crevasses without knowing it,"
the shoemaker shouted to his father-in-law.

"There they are--there they are--praised be the Lord," answered the
dyer, "I knew already that they had been on the mountain when your
messenger came to us in the night, and we had searched through the whole
forest with lanterns and had not found anything--and then, when it
dawned, I observed that on the road which leads on the left up toward
the snow-mountain, on the spot where the post stands--that there some
twigs and stalks were broken off, as children like to do on their
way--and then I knew it, and then they could not get away, because they
walked in the hollow, and then between the rocks on to the ridge which
is so steep on either side that they could not get down. They just had
to ascend. After making this observation I sent a message to Gschaid,
but the wood-cutter Michael who carried it told us at his return, when
he joined us up there near the ice, that you had found them already,
and so we came down again."

"Yes," said Michael, "I told you so because the red flag is hung out on
the Krebsstein, and this was the sign agreed upon in Gschaid. And I told
you that they all would come down this way, as one cannot climb down the
precipice."

"And kneel down and thank God on your knees, my son-in-law," continued
the dyer, "that there was no wind. A hundred years will pass before
there will be another such fall of snow that will come down straight
like wet cords hanging from a pole. If there had been any wind the
children would have perished."

"Yes, let us thank God, let us thank God," said the shoemaker.

The dyer who since the marriage of his daughter had never been in
Gschaid decided to accompany the