I now concluded to boil a guide.  It might improve him, it could not impair his usefulness.  But I was not allowed to proceed.  Guides have no feeling for science, and this one would not consent to be made uncomfortable in its interest.

In the midst of my scientific work, one of those needless accidents happened which are always occurring among the ignorant and thoughtless.  A porter shot at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist.  This was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist’s duties are as well performed on crutches as otherwise —­but the fact remained that if the Latinist had not happened to be in the way a mule would have got that load.  That would have been quite another matter, for when it comes down to a question of value there is a palpable difference between a Latinist and a mule.  I could not depend on having a Latinist in the right place every time; so, to make things safe, I ordered that in the future the chamois must not be hunted within limits of the camp with any other weapon than the forefinger.

My nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair when they got another shake-up—­one which utterly unmanned me for a moment:  a rumor swept suddenly through the camp that one of the barkeepers had fallen over a precipice!

However, it turned out that it was only a chaplain.  I had laid in an extra force of chaplains, purposely to be prepared for emergencies like this, but by some unaccountable oversight had come away rather short-handed in the matter of barkeepers.

On the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in good spirits.  I remember this day with peculiar pleasure, because it saw our road restored to us.  Yes, we found our road again, and in quite an extraordinary way.  We had plodded along some two hours and a half, when we came up against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high.  I did not need to be instructed by a mule this time.  I was already beginning to know more than any mule in the Expedition.  I at once put in a blast of dynamite, and lifted that rock out of the way.  But to my surprise and mortification, I found that there had been a chalet on top of it.

I picked up such members of the family as fell in my vicinity, and subordinates of my corps collected the rest.  None of these poor people were injured, happily, but they were much annoyed.  I explained to the head chaleteer just how the thing happened, and that I was only searching for the road, and would certainly have given him timely notice if I had known he was up there.  I said I had meant no harm, and hoped I had not lowered myself in his estimation by raising him a few rods in the air.  I said many other judicious things, and finally when I offered to rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages, and throw in the cellar, he was mollified and satisfied.  He hadn’t any cellar at all, before; he would not have as good a view, now, as formerly, but what he had lost in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measurement.  He said there wasn’t another hole like that in the mountains —­and he would have been right if the late mule had not tried to eat up the nitroglycerin.