“Away up in the Alpine Mountains, too high for trees to grow, where there is only bare rock and snow and cutting winds, climbs the road that is known as the Great St. Bernard Pass.  It is an old, old road.  The Celts crossed it when they invaded Italy.  The Roman legions crossed it when they marched out to subdue Gaul and Germany.  Ten hundred years ago the Saracen robbers hid among its rocks to waylay unfortunate travellers.  You will read about all that in your history sometime, and about the famous march Napoleon made across it on his way to Marengo.  But the most interesting fact about the road to me, is that for over seven hundred years there has been a monastery high up on the bleak mountain-top, called the monastery of St. Bernard.

“Once, when I was travelling through the Alps, I stopped there one cold night, almost frozen.  The good monks welcomed me to their hospice, as they do all strangers who stop for food and shelter, and treated me as kindly as if I had been a brother.  In the morning one of them took me out to the kennels, and showed me the dogs that are trained to look for travellers in the snow.  You may imagine with what pleasure I followed him, and listened to the tales he told me.

“He said there is not as much work for the dogs now as there used to be years ago.  Since the hospice has been connected with the valley towns by telephone, travellers can inquire about the state of the weather and the paths, before venturing up the dangerous mountain passes.  Still, the storms begin with little warning sometimes, and wayfarers are overtaken by them and lost in the blinding snowfall.  The paths fill suddenly, and but for the dogs many would perish.”

“Oh, I know,” interrupted Lloyd, eagerly.  “There is a story about them in my old third readah, and a pictuah of a big St. Bernard dog with a flask tied around his neck, and a child on his back.”

“Yes,” answered the Major, “it is quite probable that that was a picture of the dog they called Barry.  He was with the good monks for twelve years, and in that time saved the lives of forty travellers.  There is a monument erected to him in Paris in the cemetery for dogs.  The sculptor carved that picture into the stone, the noble animal with a child on his back, as if he were in the act of carrying it to the hospice.  Twelve years is a long time for a dog to suffer such hardship and exposure.  Night after night he plunged out alone into the deep snow and the darkness, barking at the top of his voice to attract the attention of lost travellers.  Many a time he dropped into the drifts exhausted, with scarcely enough strength left to drag himself back to the hospice.

“Forty lives saved is a good record.  You may be sure that in his old age Barry was tenderly cared for.  The monks gave him a pension and sent him to Berne, where the climate is much warmer.  When he died, a taxidermist preserved his skin, and he was placed in the museum at Berne, where he stands to this day, I am told, with the little flask around his neck.  I saw him there one time, and although Barry was only a dog, and I an officer in my country’s service, I stood with uncovered head before him.  For he was as truly a hero and served human kind as nobly as if he had fallen on the field of battle.