250 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
The guide Pession had been in a shiver of mortal 
terror ever since the accident, and for the rest of 
the day was worse than useless. “ You must par- 
don him,” said John the Baptist, “for he has a wife 
and children in Val Tournanche.” 
At seven o'clock we reached the upper hut. 
We put Gilbert on the hay; after which he refused. 
to move, and soon went to sleep. John decided to 
remain there over night, with Victor, Spangler, and 
myself, and to send the others down to Zermatt. Af 
ter many adventures, which I need not here relate, 
the others reached the bottom in safety. Mean- 
while, we five arranged for lodgings in the upper 
hut, some thirteen thousand feet above the sea, — 
one of the highest “ houses” in Christendom. 
This hut is simply a pile of stones more like the 
den of some beast than acabin. It is built between 
a pinnacle of rock and a precipice, its stone roof 
rising in a slope from the edge of the latter to the 
former. The height of the room within is perhaps 
five feet on the highest or upper side. Its length 
is some ten feet, and its width about six. On 
the south end is a little door or hole for entrance, 
and on the floor on the north end are three coarse 
blankets and a few armfuls of hay. A little bench, 
a small table, a tin-pail, and a basket of shavings 
complete the equipment. 
John the Baptist sent us to bed at once, — one 
on each side of Gilbert, to keep him warm. But 
nobody kept us warm. Our clothes were wet, and 
my off side was against a frosty rock, which carried 
away heat faster than I could generate it. The 
young man in one of Grimm’s fairy-tales, who 
