At Three O'clock The Guide Knocked At My Door, And I Rose And Came Out
To Him.
We drank coffee and ate bread.
We put into our sacks ham and
bread, and he white wine and I brandy. Then we set out. The rain had
dropped to a drizzle, and there was no wind. The sky was obscured for
the most part, but here and there was a star. The hills hung awfully
above us in the night as we crossed the spongy valley. A little wooden
bridge took us over the young Rhone, here only a stream, and we
followed a path up into the tributary ravine which leads to the
Nufenen and the Gries. In a mile or two it was a little lighter, and
this was as well, for some weeks before a great avalanche had fallen,
and we had to cross it gingerly. Beneath the wide cap of frozen snow
ran a torrent roaring. I remembered Colorado, and how I had crossed
the Arkansaw on such a bridge as a boy. We went on in the uneasy dawn.
The woods began to show, and there was a cross where a man had slipped
from above that very April and been killed. Then, most ominous and
disturbing, the drizzle changed to a rain, and the guide shook his
head and said it would be snowing higher up. We went on, and it grew
lighter. Before it was really day (or else the weather confused and
darkened the sky), we crossed a good bridge, built long ago, and we
halted at a shed where the cattle lie in the late summer when the snow
is melted.
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