American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-04-03
A SNOW-KING.
BY FRANK II. STOCKTON.

CAsPAR was dog, and he lived with
the monks in the monastery of st. Ber-
nard, far up on the Alps-the very high
est dwelling in that range of mountains.
You have all heard of these great St.
Bernard dogs; but if you have never
seen Caspar you have no idea how grand
a dog can be-that is, if he happen to
be a snowking.
And Caspar was king of the snow
every inch of him.
Now Caspar was not very old dog,
and he had already saved two lives. And
yet he was not proud-or, at any rate,
he did not show it.
In fact, if you had seen him jogging
around the monastery you might never
have thought that he was king of any
kind-much less such an important
monarch as the snow-king. For almost
any intelligent person might make a
pretty good king of the ordinary kind,
but kings of the snow are very scarce
indeed.
One day it began to snow early in the
morning up on the mountains. 1t did
not snow very hard at first, but people
who were weather-wise thought that
there would be quite a storm after
awhile.
AS the day wore on it became colder
and colder, and the wind began to freeze
the snow-fakes into little icy Jumps, and
it hurled them like showers of bullets
| across the, valleys and over the noun
tain peaks.
Although the wind roared sometimes
around the craggy corners, and showers
of icy shot would now and then rattle
against some frozen crust of snow, the
mountains seemed quiet, and certainly
they were desolate-
Up on the mountain sides lay vast
of hat
ing heavier and heavier as the snow fell
faster and faster. These were all ready
to come laundering and crashing down
INTO the valleys below and seemed only
waiting for the signal to begin their mad
| rush down the mountain side.
Fec when these great masses of snow
and ice are piled up in this way in the
Alps it often requires but very little
thing to start them Oil. Sometimes a
loud word, or the breaking of stick, or
| a heavy footstep will jar the air or snow
sufficiently to send an avalanche on it's
way.
1t would hardly be supposed that on
such day as this that anyone would be
out of doors but, Notwithstanding the
bad weather and the promise of worse
weather to come, on that afternoon there
were five persons toiling up the road to-
ward the monastery.
| boy about fourteen years old. His
| name was Paolo Vednatti, and he lived
down the mountain-side, some miles be-
| low the place where we find him on this
| snowy afternoon.
For a day or two Paolo had been very
anxious about a stray goat which he be-
| lieved could be found up the mountain,
and probably at or near the monastery
| of St Bernard So when that afternoon
| CT at home n
rest little before continuing their jour
ney over the Alps by way of the st.
| Bernard Pass the boy determined to go
| with them, at least as far as the monatesry.
He did not say anything to his parents
about his plan, for he had heard his
| father tell the men that 1t would be fool
| hardy to attempt to cross the mountains
| that day, when it was not only showing
| but the wind was blowing at such a ter
| rife rate thatit would be certain to start
an avalanche somewhere on the road.
| And you know well enough that it
| doesn't need much of a wind to start an
avalanche" said Paolo's mother.
| But the winds been blowing all the
morning and half the night" said one OF
| the men; and if there were any ava
lanches to start they would have been on
their way before this"
| SO the four men started OIL lust after
dinner, and Paolo slipped out after them
and Joined them when they had got out
of sight of the house.
One of the men wanted to make hin
go back, but the others said that he
might as well come if he chose-it wasnt
showing so very hard, and if he wanted
to find his goat as much as he said ht
did there was no reason why he SHOULD
not try to do IT.
So they all trudged on, and nothing o
any Importance happened for an hour
They did not have much difficulty il