Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/80

74 councils and threw fresh and startling light on the problem. A girls' school, with mistresses and all the paraphernalia of learning and wisdom, had been staying in Zermatt. Wishing to acquire close and intimate acquaintance with a glacier, they had walked up to the Gorner and scattered themselves about the ice. One of the girls, with the instincts of a born mountaineer, fearing to be late for the table d'hôte, had tracked back by herself. Accordingly, when her companions were once more assembled and ranged under the stern eye of the "genius tutelary," her absence excited alarm, and the whole school once more distributed itself over the glacier, seeking for some traces of the lost demoiselle. The sun, meanwhile set, and both teachers and taught found themselves unable to escape from their entanglements. Monsieur Seller ultimately became alarmed, and sent a guide with a lantern to look for them; and this guide spent the rest of the night in rescuing the disconsolate maidens from the various holes and chasms into which they had fallen.

Thus Burgener's hopes of fortune, and mine of discovering a real nineteenth century dragon, were rudely shattered. Still, as Burgener said, Geister or no Geister, we had had a splendid day, and stored up memories that would last us through many a winter evening. He added "it was a pity we were in such a hurry about those candles."