The Silent Barrier

CHAPTER X
ON THE GLACIER

Barth, a good man on ice and rock, was not a genius among guides. Faced by an apparently unscalable rock wall, or lost in a wilderness of séracs, he would never guess the one way that led to success. But he was skilled in the technic of his profession, and did not make the mistake now of subjecting Helen or Spencer to the risk of an ugly fall. The air temperature had dropped from eighty degrees Fahrenheit to below freezing point. Rocks that gave safe foothold an hour earlier were now glazed with an amalgam of sleet and snow. If, in his dull mind, he wondered why Spencer came next to Helen, rather than Bower or Stampa, – either of whom would know exactly when to give that timely aid with the rope that imparts such confidence to the novice, – he said nothing. Stampa’s eye was on him. His pride was up in arms. It behooved him to press on at just the right pace, and commit no blunder.

Helen, who had been glad to get back to the moraine during the ascent, was ready to breathe a sigh of relief when she felt her feet on the ice again. Those treacherous rocks were affrighting. They bereft her of trust in her own limbs. She seemed to slip here and there without power to check herself. She expected at any moment to stumble helplessly on some cruelly sharp angle of a granite boulder, and find that she was maimed so badly as to render another step impossible. More than once she was sensible that the restraining pull on the rope alone held her from disaster. Her distress did not hinder the growth of a certain surprise that the American should be so sure footed, so quick to judge her needs. When by his help a headlong downward plunge was converted into a harmless slide over the sloping face of a rock, she half turned.

“I must thank you for that afterward,” she said, with a fine effort at a smile.

“Eyes front, please,” was the quiet answer.

Under less strenuous conditions it might have sounded curt; but the look that met hers robbed the words of their tenseness, and sent the hot blood tingling in her veins. Bower had never looked at her like that. Just as some unusually vivid flash of lightning revealed the hidden depths of a crevasse, bringing plainly before the eye chinks and crannies not discernible in the strongest sunlight, so did the glimpse of Spencer’s soul illumine her understanding. He was not only safeguarding her, but thinking of her, and the stolen knowledge set up a bewildering tumult in her heart.

“Attention!” shouted Barth, halting and making a drive at something with his ax.

The line stopped. Stampa’s ringing voice came over Helen’s head:

“What is that ahead there?”

“A new fall, I think. We ought to leave the moraine a little lower down; but this was not here when we ascended.”

How either man, Stampa especially, could see anything at all, was beyond the girl’s comprehension. The snow was absolutely blinding. The wind was full in their faces, and it carried the huge flakes upward. They seemed to spring from beneath rather than drop from the clouds. Ever and anon a weirdly blue gleam of lightning would give a demoniac touch to a scene worthy of the Inferno.

“Make for the ice – quick!” cried Stampa, and Barth turned sharply to the left. Falling stones were now their chief danger, and both men were anxious to avoid it.

After a brief scramble they mounted the curving glacier. A fiercer gust shrieked at them and swept some small space clear of snow. Helen had a dim vision of lightning playing above the crest of a great mound on the edge of the ice field, – a mound that she did not remember seeing before. Then the gale sank back to its sustained howling, the snow swirled in denser volume, and the specter vanished.

Ere they had gone another hundred yards, Barth’s hoarse warning checked them again. “The bridge has fallen!” was his cry. “There has been an ice movement.”

There was a question in the man’s words. Here was a nice point submitted to his judgment, – whether to follow the line of the recently formed schrund yawning at his feet, or endeavor to cross it, or go back to the scene of the landslip? That was where Barth was lacking. In that instant he resigned his pride of place without further effort to retain it. He was in the van, but did not lead. Thenceforth Stampa was master.

“What is the width – ten meters?” demanded the old guide cheerfully.

“About that.”

“All the better. It is not deep here. The shock of that avalanche opened it up. You will find a way down. Cut the steps close together. You know how to polish them, Karl?”

“Yes, I can do that,” said the porter.

“And watch the sigñorina’s feet.”

“Yes, I’ll take care.”

Barth was peering fixedly into the chasm. To Helen’s fancy it was bottomless, though in reality it was not more than forty feet deep, and the two walls fell away from each other at a practicable angle. In normal summer weather, a small crevasse always formed there owing to the glacier flowing over a transverse ridge of rock beneath. To-day the impact of many thousands of tons of débris had disrupted the ice to an unusual extent. Having decided on the best line, the leading guide stepped over into space. Helen heard his ax ringing as he fashioned secure foothold down the steep ledge he had selected. He was quite trustworthy in such work.

Stampa, who had a thought for none save Helen, gave her a reassuring word. “Barth will find a way, fräulein,” he said. “And Herr Spencer knows how you should cross your feet and carry your ax, while Karl will see to your foothold. Remember too that you will be at the bottom before I begin the descent, so no harm can come to you. Try and stand straight. Don’t lean against the slope. Lean away from it. Don’t be afraid. Don’t trust to the rope or the grip of the ax. Rely on your own stand.”

It was no time to pick and choose phrases, yet Helen realized the oddity of the absence of any reference to Bower. One other in the party had a thought somewhat akin to hers; but he slurred it over in his mind, and seized the opportunity to help her by a casual remark.

“Guess you hardly expected genuine ice work in to-day’s trip?” he said. “Stampa and I had a lot of it last week. It’s as easy as walking down stairs when you know how.”

“I don’t think I am afraid,” she answered; “but I should have preferred to walk up stairs first. This is rather reversing the natural order of things, isn’t it?”

“Nature loves irregularities. That is why the prize girl in every novel has irregular features. A heroine with a Greek face would kill a whole library.”

“Vorwärtz – es geht!”

Barth’s gruff voice sounded hollow from the depths. Karl, in his turn, went over the lip of the crevasse. Helen, conscious of an exaltation that lifted her out of the region of ignoble fear, looked down. She could see now what was being done. Barth was swinging his ax and smiting the ice with the adz. His head was just below the level of her feet, though he was distant the full length of two sections of the rope. He had cut broad black steps. They did not seem to present any great difficulty. Helen found herself speculating on the remarkable light effects that made these notches black in a gray-green wall.

“Right foot first,” said Spencer quietly. “When that is firmly fixed, throw all your weight on it, and bring the left down. Then the right again. Hold the pick breast high.”

“So!” cried Karl appreciatively, watching her first successful effort.

As Spencer was lowering himself into the crevasse, he heard something that set his nimble wits agog. Stampa, the valiant and light hearted Stampa, the genial companion who had laughed and jested even when they were crossing an ice slope on the giant Monte della Disgrazia, – a traverse of precarious clinging, where a slip meant death a thousand feet below, – was muttering strangely at Bower.

“Schwein-hund!” he was saying, “if any evil befalls the fräulein, I shall drive my ax between your shoulder blades.”

There was no reply. Spencer was sure he was not mistaken. Though the guide spoke German, he knew enough of that language to understand this comparatively simple sentence. Quite as amazing as Stampa’s threat was Bower’s silent acceptance of it. He began to piece together some fleeting impressions of the curious wrangle between the two outside the hut. He recalled Bower’s extraordinary change of tone when told that a man named Christian Stampa had followed him from Maloja.

Helen was just taking another confident step forward and down, balancing herself with graceful assurance. Spencer had a few seconds in which to steal a backward glance, and a flash of lightning happened to glimmer on Bower’s features. The American was not given to fanciful imaginings; but during many a wild hour in the Far West he had seen the baleful frown of murder on a man’s face too often not to recognize it now in this snow scourged cleft of a mighty Alpine glacier. Yet he was helpless. He could neither speak nor act on a mere opinion. He could only watch, and be on his guard. From that moment he tried to observe every movement not only of Helen but of Bower.

The members of the party were roped at intervals of twenty feet. Allowing for the depth of the crevasse, the amount of rope taken up in their hands ready to be served out as occasion required, and the inclination of Barth’s line of descent, the latter ought to be notching the opposing wall before Stampa quitted the surface of the glacier. Though Spencer could not see Stampa now, he knew that the rear guide was bracing himself strongly against any tell-tale jerk, with the additional security of an anchor obtained by driving the pick of his ax deeply into the surface ice. It was Bower’s business to keep the rope quite taut both above and below; but the American was sure that he was gathering the slack behind him with his right hand while he carried the ax in his left, and did not use it to steady himself.

Spencer assumed, from various comments by Helen and others, that Bower was an adept climber. Therefore, the passage of a schrund, or large, shallow crevasse was child’s play to him. This departure from all the canons of the craft as imparted by Stampa during their first week on the hills together, struck Spencer as exceedingly dangerous. He reflected that were it not for the words he had overheard, he would never have known of this curious proceeding. Indeed, but for those words, with their sinister significance augmented by Bower’s devilish expression, had he even looked back by chance, the maneuver might not have attracted his attention. What, then, did it imply? Why should a skilled mountaineer break an imperative rule that permits of no exceptions? He continued to watch Bower even more closely. He devoted to the task every instant that consideration for Helen’s safety and his own would allow.

There was not much light in the crevasse. Heavy clouds and the smothering snow wraiths hid the travelers under a dense pall that suggested the approach of night, although the actual time was about half past one o’clock in the afternoon. The wind seemed to delight in torturing them with minute particles of ice that stung with a peculiar sensation of burning. These were bad enough. To add to their miseries, fine, powdery snowflakes settled on eyes and eyelids with blinding effect.

During a particularly baffling gust Helen uttered a slight exclamation. Instantly Spencer stiffened himself, and Barth and Karl halted.

“It is nothing,” she cried. “For a second I could not see.”

Barth’s ax rang out again. The vibrations of each lusty blow could be felt distinctly along the solid ice wall. After a last downward step he would begin to notch his way up the other side, where the angle was much more favorable to rapid progress. Spencer stole another glance over his shoulder. Bower had fully ten feet of the rearmost section of rope in hand. His head was thrown well back. Standing with his face to the ice, he was striving to look over the lip of the schrund. Stampa, feeling a steady tension, must be expecting the announcement momentarily that Barth was crossing the narrow crevice at the bottom. Helen and Karl, intent on the operations of the leader, paid heed to nothing else; but Spencer was fascinated by Bower’s peculiar actions.

At last, Barth’s deep bass reverberated triumphantly upward. “Vorwärtz!”

“Vorwärtz, Stampa!” repeated Bower, suddenly changing the ice ax to his right hand and stretching the left as far along the rope and as high up as possible. Simultaneously he raised the ax. Then, and not till then, did Spencer understand. Stampa must be on the point of relaxing his grip and preparing to descend. If Bower cut the rope with a single stroke of the adz, a violent tug at the sundered end would precipitate Stampa headlong into the crevasse, while there would be ample evidence to show that he had himself severed the rope by a miscalculated blow. The fall would surely kill him. When his corpse was recovered, it would be found that the cut had been made much closer to his own body than to that of his nearest neighbor.

“Stop!” roared Spencer, all a-quiver with wrath at his discovery.

Obedience to the climbers’ law held the others rigid. That command implied danger. It called for an instant tightening of every muscle to withstand the strain of a slip. Even Bower, a man on the very brink of committing a fiendish crime, yielded to a subconscious acceptance of the law, and kept himself braced in his steps.

The American was well fitted to handle a crisis of that nature. “Hold fast, Stampa!” he shouted.

“What is wrong?” came the ready cry, for the rear guide had already driven the pick of his ax into the ice again after having withdrawn it.

Then Spencer spoke English. “I happen to be watching you,” he said slowly, never relaxing a steel-cold scrutiny of Bower’s livid face. “You seem to forget what you are doing. Follow me until you have taken up the slack of the rope. Do you understand?”

Bower continued to gaze at him with lack-luster eyes. All he realized was that his murderous design was frustrated; but how or why he neither knew nor cared.

“Do you hear me?” demanded Spencer even more sternly. “Come along, or I shall explain myself more fully!”

Without answering, the other made shift to move. Spencer, however, meant to save the unwitting guide from further hazard.

“Don’t stir, Stampa, till I give the order!” he sang out.

“All right, monsieur, but we are losing time. What is Barth doing there? Saperlotte! If I were in front – ”

Bower, who owned certain strong qualities, swallowed something, took three strides downward, and said calmly: “I was waiting to give Stampa a hand. He is lame, you know.”

Helen, of course, heard all that passed. She had long since abandoned the effort to disentangle the skein of that day’s events. Everybody was talking and acting unnaturally. Perhaps the ravel of things would clear itself when they regained the commonplace world of the hotel. In any case, she wished the men would hurry, for it was unutterably cold in the crevasse.

At last, then, there was a movement ahead.

Barth began to mount. Muttering an instruction to Karl that he was to give the girl a friendly pull, he cut smaller steps more widely apart and at a steeper gradient. Soon they were on the floor of the ice and hurrying to the next bridge. Not a word was spoken by anyone. The fury of the gale and the ever gathering snow made it imperative that not a moment should be wasted. The lightning was decreasing perceptibly, while the occasional peals of thunder were scarcely audible above the soughing of the wind. A tremendous crash on the right announced the fall of another avalanche; but it did not affect the next broad crevasse. The bridge they had used a few hours earlier stood firm. Indeed, it was new welded by regelation since the sun’s rays had disappeared.

The leader kept a perfect line, never deviating from the right track. Helen, who had completely lost her bearings, thought they had a long way farther to go, when she saw Barth stop and begin to unfasten the rope. Then a thrust with the butt of her pickel told her that she was standing on rock. When she cleared her eyes of the flying snow, she saw a well defined curving ribbon amid the white chaos. It was the path, covered six inches deep. The violent exertions of nearly three hours since she left the hut had induced a pleasant sense of languor. Did she dare to suggest it, she would have liked to sit down and rest for awhile.

Bower, who had substituted reasoned thought for his madness, addressed Spencer with easy complacence while Barth was unroping them. “Why did you believe that I was doing a risky thing in stopping to assist Stampa?” he asked.

“I guess you know best,” was the uncompromising answer.

“Yes, I think I do. Of course, I could not argue the matter then, but I fancy my climbing experience is far greater than yours, Mr. Spencer.”

His sheer impudence was admirable. He even smiled in the superior way of an expert lecturing a novice. But Spencer did not smile.

“Do you really want to hear my views on your conduct?” he said.

“No, thanks. The discussion might prove interesting, but we can adjourn it to the coffee and cigar period after dinner.”

His eyes fell under Spencer’s contemptuous glance. Yet he carried himself bravely. Though the man he meant to kill, and another man who had read his inmost thought in time to prevent a tragedy, were looking at him fixedly, he turned away with a laugh on his lips.

“I am afraid, Miss Wynton, you will regard me in future as a broken reed where Alpine excursions are concerned,” he said.

“You were mistaken – that is obvious,” said Helen frankly. “But so was Barth. He agreed that the storm would be only a passing affair. Don’t you think we are very deeply indebted to Mr. Spencer and Stampa for coming to our assistance?”

“I do, indeed. Stampa, one can reward in kind. This sort of thing used to be his business, I hear. As for Mr. Spencer, a smile from you will repay him tenfold.”

“Herr Spencer,” broke in Stampa, “you go on with the sigñorina and see that she does not slip. She is tired. Marcus Bauer and I have matters to discuss.”

The old man’s unwonted harshness appealed to the girl as did the host of other queer happenings on that memorable day. Bower moved uneasily. A vindictive gleam shot from his eyes. Helen missed none of this. But she was fatigued, and her feet were cold and wet, while the sleet encountered on the upper glacier had almost soaked her to the skin. Nevertheless, she strove bravely to lighten the cloud that seemed to have settled on the men.

“That means a wordy warfare,” she said gayly. “I pity you, Mr. Bower. You cannot wriggle out of your difficulty. The snow will soon be a foot deep in the valley. Goodness only knows what would have become of us up there in the hut!”

He bowed gracefully, with a hint of the foreign air she had noted once before. “I would have brought you safely out of greater perils,” he said; “but every dog has his day, and this is Stampa’s.”

“En route!” cried the guide impatiently. He loathed the sight of Bower standing there, smiling and courteous, in the presence of one whom he regarded as a Heaven-sent friend and protectress. Spencer attributed his surliness to its true cause. It supplied another bit of the mosaic he was slowly piecing together. Greatly as he preferred Helen’s company, he was willing to sacrifice at least ten minutes of it, could he but listen to the “discussion” between Stampa and Bower.

Therein he would have erred greatly. Helen was tired, and she admitted it. She did not decline his aid when the path was steep and slippery. In delightful snatches of talk they managed to say a good deal to each other, and Helen did not fail to make plain the exact circumstances under which she first caught sight of Spencer outside the hut. When they arrived at the carriage road, which begins at Lake Cavloccio, they could walk side by side and chat freely. Here, in the valley, matters were normal. The snow did not place such a veil on all things. The windings of the road often brought them abreast of the four men in the rear. Bower was trudging along alone, holding his head down, and seemingly lost in thought.

Close behind him came Stampa and the Engadiners. Karl, of course, was talking – the others might or might not be lending their ears to his interminable gossip.

“We are outstripping our companions. Don’t you think we ought to wait for them?” said Helen once, when Bower chanced to look her way.

“No,” said Spencer.

“You are exceedingly positive.”

“I tried to be exceedingly negative.”

“But why?”

“I rather fancy that they would jar on us.”

“But Stampa’s promised lecture appears to have ended?”

“I think it never began. It is a safe bet that Mr. Bower and he have not exchanged a word since our last halt.”

Helen laughed. “A genuine case of Greek meeting Greek,” she said. “Stampa is an excellent guide, I am sure; but Mr. Bower does really know these mountains. I suppose anyone is liable to err in forecasting Alpine weather.”

“That is nothing. If it were you or I, Stampa would dismiss the point with a grin. You heard how he chaffed Barth, yet trusted him with the lead? No. These two have an old feud to settle. You will hear more of it.”

“A feud! Mr. Bower declared to me that Stampa was absolutely unknown to him.”

“It isn’t necessary to know a man before you hate him. I can give you a heap of historic examples. For instance, who has a good word to say for Ananias?”

The girl understood that he meant to parry her question with a quip. The cross purposes so much in evidence all day were baffling and mysterious to its close.

“My own opinion is that both you and Stampa have taken an unreasonable dislike to Mr. Bower,” she said determinedly. The words were out before she quite realized their import. She flushed a little.

Spencer was gazing down into the gorge of the Orlegna. The brawling torrent chimed with his own mood; but his set face gave no token of the storm within. He only said quietly, “How good it must be to have you as a friend!”

“I have no reason to feel other than friendly to Mr. Bower,” she protested hotly. “It was the rarest good fortune for me that he came to Maloja. I met him once in London, and a second time, by accident, during my journey to Switzerland. Yet, widely known as he is in society, he was sufficiently large minded to disregard the sneers and innuendoes of some of those horrid women in the hotel. He has gone out of his way to show me every kindness. Why should I not repay it by speaking well of him?”

“I shall lay my head on the nearest tree stump, and you can smite me with your ax, good and hard,” said Spencer.

She laughed angrily. “I don’t know what evil influence is possessing us,” she cried. “Everything is awry. Even the sun refuses to shine. Here am I storming at one to whom I owe my life – ”

“No,” he broke in decisively. “Don’t put it that way, because the whole credit of the relief expedition is due to Stampa. Say, Miss Wynton, may I square my small services by asking a favor?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

“Well, then, if it lies in your power, keep Stampa and Bower apart. In any event, don’t intervene in their quarrel.”

“So you are quite serious in your belief that there is a quarrel?”

The American saw again in his mind’s eye the scene in the crevasse when Bower had raised his ax to strike. “Quite serious,” he replied, and the gravity in his voice was so marked that Helen placed a contrite hand on his arm for an instant.

“Please, I am sorry if I was rude to you just now,” she said. “I have had a long day, and my nerves are worn to a fine edge. I used to flatter myself that I hadn’t any nerves; but they have come to the surface here. It must be the thin air.”

“Then it is a bad place for an American.”

“Ah, that reminds me of something I had forgotten. I meant to ask you how you came to remain in the Maloja. Is that too inquisitive on my part? I can account for the presence of the other Americans in the hotel. They belong to the Paris colony, and are interested in tennis and golf. I have not seen you playing either game. In fact, you moon about in solitary grandeur, like myself. And – oh, dear! what a string of questions! – is it true that you wanted to play baccarat with Mr. Bower for a thousand pounds?”

“It is true that I agreed to share a bank with Mr. Dunston, and the figure you mention was suggested; but I backed out of the proposition.”

“Why?”

“Because your friend, Mr. Hare, thought he was responsible, in a sense, having introduced me to Dunston; so I let up on the idea, – just to stop him from feeling bad about it.”

“You really meant to play in the first instance?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it was very wicked of you. Only the other day you were telling me how hard you had to work before you saved your first thousand pounds.”

“From that point of view my conduct was idiotic. But I would like to carry the story a little further, Miss Wynton. I was in a mood that night to oppose Mr. Bower for a much more valuable stake if the chance offered.”

“It is rather shocking,” said Helen.

“I suppose so. Of course, there are prizes in life that cannot be measured by monetary standards.”

He was not looking at the Orlegna now, and the girl by his side well knew it. The great revelation that flooded her soul with light while crossing the Forno came back with renewed power. She did not pretend to herself that the words were devoid of a hidden meaning, and her heart fluttered with subtle ecstasy. But she was proud and self reliant, so proud that she crushed the tumult in her breast, so self reliant that she was able to give him a timid smile.

“That deals with the second head of the indictment, then,” she said lightly. “Now for the first. Why did you select the Engadine for your holiday?”

“If I could tell you that, I should know something of the occult impulses that govern men’s lives. One minute I was in London, meaning to go north. The next I was hurrying to buy a ticket for St. Moritz.”

“But – ” She meant to continue, “you arrived here the same day as I did.” Somehow that did not sound quite the right thing to say. Her tongue tripped; but she forced herself to frame a sentence. “It is odd that you, like myself, should have hit upon an out of the way place like Maloja. The difference is that I was sent here, whereas you came of your own free will.”

“I guess you are right,” said he, laughing as though she had uttered an exquisite joke. “Yes, that is just it. I can imagine two young English swallows, meeting in Algeria in the winter, twittering explanations of the same sort.”

“I don’t feel a bit like a swallow, and I am sure I can’t twitter, and as for Algeria, a home of sunshine – well, just look at it!” She waved a hand at the darkening panorama of hills and pine woods, all etched in black lines and masses, where rocks and trees and houses broke the dead white of the snow mantle.

They happened to be crossing a bridge that spans the Orlegna before it takes its first frantic plunge towards Italy. Bower, who had quickened his pace, took the gesture as a signal, and sent an answering flourish. Helen stopped. He evidently wished to overtake them.

“More explanations,” murmured Spencer.

“But he was mistaken. I was calling Nature to witness that your simile was not justified.”

“Tell you what,” he said in a low voice, “if this storm has blown over by the morning, meet me after breakfast, and we will walk down the valley to Vicosoprano for luncheon. There is a diligence back in the afternoon. We can stroll there in three hours, and I shall have time to clear up this swallow proposition.”

“That will be delightful, if the weather improves.”

“It will. I will compel it.”

Bower was nearing them rapidly. A constrained silence fell between them. To end it, Helen cried:

“Well, are you feeling duly humbled, Mr. Bower?”

He did not seem to understand her meaning. Apparently, he might have forgotten that Stampa still lived. Then he roused his wits with an effort. “Not humbled, but elated,” he said. “Have I not led you to feats of derring-do? Why, the Wragg girls will be green with envy when they hear of your exploits.”

He swung round the corner to the bridge. After a smiling glance at Spencer’s impassive face, he turned to Helen. “You have come out of the ordeal with flying colors,” he said. “That flower you picked on the way up has not withered. Give it to me as a memento.”

The words were almost a challenge. The girl hesitated.

“No,” she said. “I must find you some other souvenir.”

“But I want that – if – ”

“There is no ‘if.’ You forget that I took it from – from the boulder marked by a cross.”

“I am not superstitious.”

“Nor am I. Nevertheless, I should not care to give you such a symbol.”

She caught Bower and Spencer exchanging a strange look. These men shared some secret that they sedulously kept from her. Perhaps the American meant to enlighten her during their projected walk to Vicosoprano.

Stampa and the others approached. Together they climbed the little hill leading to the summit of the pass. In the village they said “Good night” to the two guides and Karl.

Helen promised laughingly to make the acquaintance of Johann Klucker’s cat at the first opportunity. She was passing through a wicket that protects the footpath across the golf links, when she heard Stampa growl:

“Morgen früh!”

“Ja!” snapped Bower.

She smiled to herself at the thought that things were going to happen to-morrow. She was right. But she had not yet done with the present day. When she entered the cozy and brilliantly lighted veranda of the hotel, the first person her amazed eyes alighted upon was Millicent Jaques.