"Assuredly, _fraeulein_," he cried. "Am I not here? Were it to begin to snow at once, I could still bring you unharmed to the chalets." Josef Barth had borne Stampa's reproaches with surly deference; but he refused to be degraded in this fashion--before Karl, too, whose tongue wagged so loosely. "That is the talk of a foolish boy, not of a man," he cried wrathfully. "Am I not fitted, then, to take mademoiselle home after bringing her here?" "Truly, on a fine day, Josef," was the smiling answer. "I told monsieur that a _guxe_ was blowing up from the south; so did Karl; but he would not hearken. _Ma foi!_ I am not to blame." Barth, on his dignity, introduced a few words of French picked up from the Chamounix men. He fancied they would awe Stampa, and prove incidentally how wide was his own experience. The old guide only laughed. "A nice pair, you and Karl," he shouted. "Are the voyageurs in your care or not? You told monsieur, indeed! You ought to have refused to take mademoiselle. That would have settled the affair, I fancy." "But this monsieur knows as much about the mountains as any of us. He might surprise even you, Stampa. He has climbed the Matterhorn from Zermatt and Breuil. He has come down the rock wall on the Col des Nantillons. How is one to argue with such a _voyageur_ on this child's glacier?" Stampa whistled. "Oh--knows the Matterhorn, does he? What is his name?" "Bower," said Helen,--"Mr. Mark Bower." "What! Say that again, _fraeulein_! Mark Bower? Is that your English way of putting it?" Helen attributed Stampa's low hiss to a tardy recognition of Bower's fame as a mountaineer. Though the hour was noon, the light was feeble. Veritable thunder clouds had gathered above the mist, and the expression of Stampa's face was almost hidden in the obscurity of the hut. "That is his name," she repeated. "You must have heard of him. He was well known on the high Alps--years ago." She paused before she added those concluding words. She was about to say "in your time," but the substituted phrase was less personal, since the circumstances under which Stampa ceased to be a notability in "the street" at Zermatt were in her mind. "God in heaven!" muttered the old man, passing a hand over his face as though waking from a dream,--"God in heaven! can it be that my prayer is answered at last?" He shambled out. Spencer had waited to watch the almost continuous blaze of lightning playing on the glacier. Distant summits were now looming through the diminishing downpour of sleet. He was wondering if by any chance Stampa might be mistaken. Bower stood somewhat apart, seemingly engaged in the same engrossing task. The wind was not quite so fierce as during its first onset. It blew in gusts. No longer screaming in a shrill and sustained note, it wailed fitfully. Stampa lurched unevenly close to Bower. He was about to touch him on the shoulder; but he appeared to recollect himself in time.