“It’s the most wonderful colour I’ve ever seen,” she said, drinking it in with wide appreciative eyes. “It hardly looks real and earthly. It looks as though a breath would make it vanish. I suppose if we got inside there it would simply be all white.” But just then, in sullen warning, a solid lump of overhanging ice came down with a crash, and a volley of stones came shooting at them mixed with its splinters, and they turned and went on their way down the stony valley. The rain ceased again just as they arrived at the big hotel, and as Ray swung off his cloak and shook it, Lois laughed and said, “When we get to Oberwald you must hand me over your trousers and I’ll stitch them up.” “Why?--what?--” and he clapped his hands to his hips to feel the damage, while Lois still stood laughing at the rents and tears which his cloak had so far hidden. “I should keep my cloak on if I were you,” she suggested, and then asked quickly, “Why--Ray? What is it? Are you more hurt than you thought?”--for the look on his face was one of concern if not of actual consternation. “I am,” he jerked, with a pinch on his face, and then he felt hastily in his other pockets and the tension slackened somewhat. “But it’s not in my person,--only in my pocket. Would you mind kicking me, dear? Here,--we’ll go round the corner,” and he stepped back the way they had come. “And--would you also mind telling me what money you have in your pocket or your rucksac.” “Not very much, I’m afraid. Two or three pounds, I think. Why?” “Because,” he said, displaying the catastrophe. “That stupid slip of mine has busted my hip-pocket and all our money’s gone. All except the change out of this morning’s five-pounder. With that and yours we can get to Montreux all right, and I can wire from there to Uncle Tony, but it’s confoundedly stupid,----” “Couldn’t we find it if we went back?” “I’m going to try, but you’ll stop here and have some tea to pass the time.” “Oh no, I won’t. It’s share and share alike. Aren’t we almost man and wife? Come along! We’ll have a hunt for our money anyway,” and she led the way back towards the glacier. They searched for an hour, but looking for a flat leather purse in that stony land was like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. They found the exact spot where Ray took his sudden slide, but search below it discovered nothing. They followed step by step the way he had taken till he met Lois and then, as well as they could, the path they had taken to the ice-foot. But there was no sign of the purse and he came to the conclusion that his pocket was probably torn by the slide and the purse fell out of it later on,--anywhere down the two-mile stretch of stony valley between them and the hotel. They paced it with meticulous care, searching cautiously, but found nothing, and at last gave it up and went on,--soberly as regards Ray, amusedly as regards Lois, who persisted in looking only at the humorous side of the matter.