After a brief discussion, our guides, recognizing the impossibility of finding another road, decided to attempt this dangerous passage.
"We must walk very fast,--even run, if possible," said they, "and we shall be in safety in five minutes. Come, messieurs, a last effort!"
A run of five minutes is a small matter for people who are only tired; but for us, who were absolutely exhausted, to run even for so short a time on soft snow, in which we sank up to the knees, seemed an impossibility. Nevertheless, we made an urgent appeal to our energies, and after two or three tumbles, drawn forward by one, pushed by another, we finally reached a snow hillock, on which we fell breathless. We were out of danger.
It required some time to recover ourselves. We stretched out on the snow with a feeling
