deliberately into a crevasse, or into my face with an eager, speaking,
troubled look. That he should have recognized and appreciated the danger
at the first glance showed wonderful sagacity. Never before had the
daring midget seemed to know that ice was slippery or that there was any
such thing as danger anywhere. His looks and tones of voice when he
began to complain and speak his fears were so human that I unconsciously
talked to him in sympathy as I would to a frightened boy, and in trying
to calm his fears perhaps in some measure moderated my own. "Hush your
fears, my boy," I said, "we will get across safe, though it is not going
to be easy. No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our
lives to save them. At the worst we can only slip, and then how grand a
grave we will have, and by and by our nice bones will do good in the
terminal moraine."

But my sermon was far from reassuring him: he began to cry, and after
taking another piercing look at the tremendous gulf, ran away in
desperate excitement, seeking some other crossing. By the time he got
back, baffled of course, I had made a step or two. I dared not look
back, but he made himself heard; and when he saw that I was certainly
bent on crossing he cried aloud in despair. The danger was enough to
daunt anybody, but it seems wonderful that he should have been able to
weigh and appreciate it so justly. No mountaineer could have seen it
more quickly or judged it more wisely, discriminating between real and
apparent peril.

When I gained the other side, he screamed louder than ever, and after
running back and forth in vain search for a way of escape, he would
return to the brink of the crevasse above the bridge, moaning and
wailing as if in the bitterness of death. Could this be the silent,
philosophic Stickeen? I shouted encouragement, telling him the bridge