By questioning him they learned what his situation was, and the distance he lay from the top of the ledge; for they could gain no position where they could see him. They bade him keep up his courage until they came again. It was indeed a long time before he heard their voices again speaking to him, and then down over the icy rock came a knotted rope made of strips of the canvas that remained of the "A" tent. At the end of the life-line, as it dangled nearer and nearer, were two strong loops like a breeches-buoy. Philip felt strong again when he had the line in his hand, and thrusting his legs through the loops, he called out to hoist away. As he went up, up, he clung fast with his hands to the strip of canvas; but he was too weak to keep himself away from the rock with his feet, so he bumped against it until he was drawn over the surface of the same stone he had slipped on the morning before. He saw the kind faces of his two comrades, and then he sank unconscious on the firm earth at their feet. CHAPTER XVII HOW THE POSTMASTER SAW A GHOST On the day when Philip fell into the avalanche, although it was likely to break away from the face of the mountain at any moment and come thundering down on the rocks below, not a single person came to the office to watch with the postmaster, who went outside from time to time and gazed up into the mist, and then, with a sigh of relief, returned to his arm-chair before the fireplace. In better weather he would have had plenty of gossiping company, for avalanche day was quite the liveliest day in his calendar. Despite the rain which kept pattering on the low roof, he hoped that the snow and ice would hold fast to the rock until the sun came again; but nevertheless his old ears were constantly on the alert for the crash which he feared. On many a January day, in the years that were past, he had occupied his favorite chair in the warm sun against the east wall of the office, surrounded by his neighbors, watching the glittering mass, and noting the small fragments of ice which broke away from time to time before the final crash. He had heard nothing yet, and as the gloomy afternoon wore on he began to be almost certain that he was not to lose his holiday, after all. The postmaster, though living so much alone, had a way of talking to himself, and on this occasion he was more talkative than ever, because of the uneasiness he felt. "Hit's a quare thing," he said, getting up and kicking the logs into a blaze, and then sitting down again in his sheepskin-cushioned chair. "Hit's plumb quare." By way of making these solitary talks more sociable, the old man had developed a clever habit of talking in dialogue, imagining himself for the time in the company of some congenial spirit, for whom he spoke as well as for himself. On this particular occasion his imaginary companion was a mountain woman for whom he had felt a sentimental regard years before, but to whom he had never told his love.