Moving cautiously, we began to descend, in order to cross the neck which stretches between the Dome du Gouter and the Bosses.  When we wandered a little to the right the surface commenced to pitch off, and we knew what that meant—­beware!  Once when we had veered too far to the left, staggering down hill under the blows of the storm, and able to see but a few feet away, we stopped as if a shot had arrested us.  Another step or two would have carried us over a precipice of ice, whose blue wall fell perpendicularly from the brittle edge at our feet into cloud-choked depths.  We had gone down our roof to the eaves.  Not a word was spoken, but with instant unanimity we turned and scrambled up again, Couttet in the lead, and the porter breathing hard at my heels.  Such a scene in the fraction of a second is photographed on the memory for a lifetime.

In a little while we began to ascend another slope, to which we had felt our way, and this was surely the swelling hump of the first of the Bosses, and the rocks must be near at hand.  Another opportune gap in the clouds, which left us for an instant surrounded with retreating walls of vapor, confirmed that opinion, and vindicated the mountaineering skill of Couttet, who had found the way though way there was none.  A quick, breathless scramble up a confused heap of ice and slippery points of rock brought us at last to the refuge.

[Illustration:  PASSAGE OF A CREVASSE, MONT BLANC.]

A NIGHT OF SCANT SHELTER AND NO FOOD.

Couttet shook and banged the door, making a noise that did not penetrate far through the whistling air, and, with cold fingers, began fumbling at the latch, when, to my surprise, the door opened and a muffled voice bade us enter.  An Englishman who had started with his guides at midnight from the Grands Mulets, and three or four of Monsieur Janssen’s porters, had already sought refuge in the hut.  Icicles hung about my face, and my clothes were as stiff as chain armor.  There was no fire in the little hut and no means of making any.  My watch, when I was able to get it out of my pocket, showed the time to be a quarter to nine A.M.

Pulling off our shoes and putting on dry stockings as quickly as possible, we imitated the example of the man who had let us in, and who no sooner closed the door than he tumbled back into his bunk and buried himself in the rough woollen blankets which the Alpine Club has provided for the use of those who may need them.

In about an hour the storm lightened, and the Englishman and the porters started back to the Grands Mulets.  I consulted Couttet about making a dash for the summit; but he thought it would be better to wait awhile, and better still to follow the others down the mountain.  To this last proposition I decidedly objected, although Couttet was right, as it turned out; for in another hour the storm, which had not entirely ceased at any time, whipped itself into renewed fury, and before