Part 22 (1/2)
Dale laughed again.
”Well,” he replied, ”it is not quite the smallest. Say the medium. On again, Melchior!”
”Yes, herr: let's get as high as we can while the morning is young and the snow hard. We can take our time on the rock.”
The guide was following the custom that seems to have come natural to man and beast--that of zigzagging up a steep place; but instead of making for the centre of the col, where it was lowest, he kept bearing to the left--that is, he made the track three times the length of that to the right, and he drew on toward where the slope grew steeper and steeper.
The snow was far better to walk upon now, for the surface was well frozen, and they had only to plant their feet in the deep steps the guide made by driving the soles of his heavily nailed boots well into the crust.
”Take care! take care!” he kept on saying to Saxe, who was in the middle. ”There is no danger, but a slip would send you down, and you could not stop till you were at the bottom.”
”I'll mind,” said Saxe, as he stole a glance now and then up at the steep white slope above him, or at that beneath, beyond which the pines among which they had slept the past night now looked like heather.
”Yes, it is all very big, Mr Dale,” he said suddenly.
”Wait a bit. You don't half know yet. Say it's bigger than you thought. Getting harder, isn't it, Melchior?”
”Yes, herr. If it gets much harder, I shall have to cut steps; but only here and there, where it's steepest.”
”Isn't it steepest now?” said Saxe, who felt as if he could touch the surface by extending his right hand.
”Oh no, herr. You don't mind?”
”Not a bit,” cried the lad: ”I like it.”
”What's the matter?” said Dale, as they still mounted the dazzling slope of snow, far now above the dip of the col over which they had come.
”Bad piece here, sir. We'll have the rope. I'll fasten my end and hand the rest to you, to secure yourselves while I begin cutting.”
”Right!” replied Dale; and a minute later he caught the rings of hemp thrown to him, and rapidly knotted the middle round Saxe, the end to his own waist; and as he knotted, _click, click! chip, chip_! went the ice-axe, deftly wielded by the guide, who with two or three blows broke through enough of the crust to make a secure footing while the ice flew splintering down the slope in miniature avalanches, with a peculiar metallic tinkling sound.
”Will there be much to cut?” said Dale.
”No, herr; only a step here and there to make us quite safe,”--and he chipped away again after a few steps, and broke in others with the toes of his boots.
”I say,” whispered Saxe, ”suppose he slipped while he's swinging that axe round, he'd drag us both down too.”
”And by the same argument, if you or I slipped, we should s.n.a.t.c.h him from his place.”
”Yes; that's what I thought.
”That would only be in a very extreme case; and you may as well learn your mountaineer's lesson at once. When we are roped together, and one slips, he generally saves himself by rapidly sticking the sharp pick of his axe into the snow. He gives the others ample warning by this that something is wrong before the jerk and strain come upon the rope.”
”And what do they do?”
”Drive their ice-picks right into the snow, hang back against the slope, and tighten the rope from one to the other. So that generally, instead of a fall, there is only a short slip. Do you understand!”
”Yes, I think so.”
”So it is that three or four who understand mountaineering, and work together and trust each other, go up and down places that would be impa.s.sable to the unskilful. Hah! we are getting to the top of this slope. Tut, tut! cutting again. Look out!”