ian men; and if you knew how hungry I am, you
wouldn't keep me waiting for talk of brigands. Bread and butter are
far more to the point."

"Even search for the rare Edelmann may wait?"

"Yes. The Edelmann may wait--on me." The last two words she dared but
to whisper.

"You must pardon my going first," said the man with the bare brown
knees. "The way is too narrow for politeness."

"Yet I wish that the peasants at home had such courteous manners as
yours," Virginia patronized him, prettily. "You Rhaetians need not go
to court, I see, for lessons in behavior."

"The mountains teach us something, maybe."

"Something of their greatness, which we should all do well to learn.
But have you never lived in a town?"

"A man of my sort _exists_ in a town. He lives in the mountains." With
this diplomatic response, the tall figure swung round a corner formed
by a boulder of rock, and Virginia gave a little cry of surprise. The
"hut" of which the chamois hunter had spoken was revealed by the turn,
and it was of an unexpected and striking description. Instead of the
humble erection of stones and wood which she had counted on, the rocky
side of the mountain itself had been coaxed to give her sons a
shelter.

A doorway, and large square openings for windows, had been cut in the
red-veined, purplish-brown porphyry; while a heavy slab of oak, and
wooden frames filled full of glittering bottle-glass, protected such
rooms as might have been hollowed out within, from storm or cold.

Even had Virginia been ignorant of her host's identity, she would have
been wise enough to guess that here was no Sennhuette, or ordinary
abode of common peasants, who hunt the chamois for a precarious
livelihood. The work of hewing out in the solid rock a habitation such
as this must have cost more than most Rhaetian chamois hunters would
save in many a year. But her wisdom also counseled her to express no
further surprise after her first exclamation.

"My mates are away for the time, though they may come back by and by,"
the man explained, holding the heavy oaken door that she might pass
into the room within; and though she was not invited to further
exploration, she was able to see by the several doorways cut in the
rock walls, that this was not the sole accommodation the strange house
could boast.

On the rock floor, rugs of deer and chamois skin were spread; in a
rack of oak, ornamented with splendid antlers and studded with the
sharp, pointed