When his wrist-watch told us that it was time to follow on, the lad clapped his eagle-feather hat firmly on his head, set his jaw, fixed his eyes grimly on the trail in front of him, and strode off into the narrow passage that had been cut through the towering bulk of the slide. From the do-or-die expression on his handsome young face one might well have imagined that it was the menace of that engulfing mass of poised snow which was weighing him down, and such, I am sure, would have been my own impression had this been my first day among the Alpini. But by now I had seen enough of Italy’s mountain soldiers to know that this one was as disdainful of the _valanga_ as the _valanga_ was of him: and that the crushing burden on his mind at that moment was only the problem how to negotiate that next kilometre of beautiful snow-walled trail without telling the world in one glad burst of song after another how wonderful it was to be alive and young, and climbing up nearer at every step to those glistening snow peaks whence his comrades had driven the enemy headlong but a few months before, and whence, perchance, they would soon move again to take the next valley and the peaks beyond it in their turn. If he had been alone, slide or no slide, orders or no orders, he would have shouted his gladness to the high heavens, come what might; but as it was, with a more or less helpless foreigner on his hands, and within hearing of his superior officer, it was quite another matter. It was really very interesting going through that awakening _valanga_,--so my escorting captain told me when we rejoined him and the major under a sheltering cliff at the farther side--especially in the opportunity that the cutting through of the trail gave to study a cross-section of the forest that had been folded down by the sliding snow. Indeed, they had told me in advance of this strange sight, and I had really had it in mind to look out for these up-ended and crumpled pine trees. Moreover, it is quite probable that I did let the corner of an eye rove over them in a perfunctory sort of way; but the fact remains that the one outstanding recollection I have of that thousand-yard-wide pile of hair-poised snow is of the hunched shoulders and comically set face of my young guide as revealed to me when he doubled the zigzags of the tortuous trail that penetrated it.