The winds sweep fiercely through the passes between the mountain peaks, and send terrible, whirling clouds of snow that cut the face and blind the eyes, and many times a wanderer plunges over a precipice that he cannot see, or worn by struggles, he sinks exhausted to die.  Then, there are the ice-bridges.  What I am telling will give only a faint idea of the importance of the work of those magnificent dogs of the Hospice.  And there is something that is not generally known, but is just as heroic.  The monks who go to the Hospice volunteer for that work, knowing fully that five years up there in the altitude and intense cold mean practically the end of their lives.  It ruins their lungs, and so, after a time, they go quietly down into the milder air of the Valley of the Rhone, in France, and there they wait cheerfully during the short span of life ahead of them.  Only the young and strong monks are sent to the Hospice.”

After the doctor ceased speaking they all sat silently and watched the blazing logs, for each of the listeners, as well as the doctor, was thinking of the sacrifice and unselfishness of those monks, and the brave loyalty of their dog-friends on the trail.

“I wish I had enough money to send Prince Jan back to his own work and home,” the captain said wistfully.  “Maybe, though, I can manage it some day,” he added more hopefully.  “I feel as if he ought to be there with the others.”

“You are right,” agreed the doctor, and his wife nodded her head quickly.  “Jan’s work, his kin, his home, lie back there at the Hospice.  I owe the lives of my wife and my baby to him, and if you are willing to let him go back there, I will take him back to the Hospice myself.  But, won’t you miss him?”

“It would make me as happy as it would make him, to know he was back there again,” answered the old man eagerly, as he stooped over and caressed the dog’s head.

Jan, in his sleep, recognized the touch and swished his tail lightly, but he did not open his eyes, and he never knew what the doctor and the captain had been talking about that evening.

But when it was known in the little town that the doctor was planning to take Prince Jan back to the Hospice, and those who had been saved from the ship heard the story of the dog, every one wanted to help.  The newspaper printed the story of Prince Jan and his ancestors, and then people kept coming to see him, and most of them brought money for the trip back to the Hospice.

A beautiful collar of silver was made for him, and on it were engraved the words,

    A token of gratitude from the ninety-two people whose lives were
    saved by Prince Jan, when all hope was lost.

With this collar was a purse of money sufficient to pay Jan’s passage home, and a nice sum left over to give to the monks who cared for the dogs at the Hospice.