should have missed a short cut which I half saw, half suspected, dimly zigzagging down the mountain into an extraordinarily deep valley, and tending in the direction of Brig.  It would have been a pity to pass it by, for though I often thought myself lost, I eventually caught sight of a town, lying far below, which could be no other than the one for which I was bound.  After three hours of fast walking down from the Hospice, I plunged through an old archway into the main street of Brig.

Coming into it, I stopped to gaze up in astonishment at an enormous house which looked to me as big as Windsor Castle.  Indeed, to call it a house does not express its personality at all; yet it was hardly magnificent enough for a castle.  At each corner was an immense tower, ornamented with a big bulb of copper, like a gigantic and glorified Spanish onion.  A beautiful Renaissance gallery, flung across from one tall building to another, lent grace to the otherwise too solid pile, and I guessed that I must have come upon the ancient stronghold and mansion of the famous Stockalper family, still existing and still one of the most important in Switzerland.  In the Pass I had seen the towers built by the first Stockalper—­that Gaspar who in mediaeval days was called “King of the Simplon”; who protected travellers and controlled the caravan traffic between Italy and Switzerland; now, to see the house which he had founded still occupied by his descendants, fixed more pictorially in my mind the stirring legends connected with the man.

The little town of Brig seemed noisy and gay after the great silence of the Pass.  Church bells were ringing, whips were cracking; in the central place there were crowding shops, bright with colour, and lights were beginning to shine out from the windows of the hotels.

I was to meet the Winstons at the Hotel Couronne; and as I ventured to show my travel-stained person in the hall, I was greeted by a vision:  Molly in white muslin, dressed for dinner.

“What, you already!” she exclaimed.  “You must have come over the Pass by steam or electricity.  We didn’t expect you for an hour.  We’ve lots to tell you, and oh, I’ve bought you a sweet revolver, which you are always to have about you, on your walking trip, though Jack laughed at me for doing it.  But now, for your adventures.”

In a few words I sketched them, and learned that the motor had again pulled wool over the eyes of the law; then Molly must have seen in mine that there was a question which I wished, but hesitated, to ask.  If a man may have a beam in his eye, why not a mule?

“We’ve been interviewing animals of various sorts for you all day,” she said.  “I’ve had a kind of employment agency for mules, and have taken their characters and capacities.  But——­”

“There’s a ‘but,’ is there?” I cut into her ominous pause.

“Well, the nicest beasts are all engaged for days ahead, or else their owners can’t spare them for a long trip; or else they’re too young; or else they’re too old; or else they’re hideous.  At least, there’s one who’s hideous, and I’m sorry to say he’s the only one you can have.”