Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-01-10
CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVII.
 After he had rested awhile at the bot tom of the glacier Otter set to work to ex- plore the cliff on the top of which he found himself, with the view of descending 1t and hiding himself at its foot till night fall, when he hoped to find the means of the city and putting himself in communication with Olfan. Very soon, however, he discovered that if he was to return at all he must follow the same route by which he had come.
 Evidently the tunnel sloped upward very sharply, for he was standing on the brow of precipice cut into three steps, which, taken together, may have measured some 300 feet in height, and, so far as he could see, 1t was utterly impossible to descend any of these cliffs without the aid of ropes. Nor could he continue his Investigations over a wide area, for about 400 paces to the left of the opening to the subterranean passage-whereof, by the way, he was very careful to note the exact position-the mountain pushed out a snowy shoulder, with declivities so precipitous that he dared not trust himself on them.
 Then he tried the right hand side, but with no better luck, for here he was stop ped by yawning rift in the rock. Now Otter sat down and considered the situa- tion.
 The day was still young, and ho knew that 1t would be foolish to attempt escape from the pool before dark. In front of him the mountain rose steeply till, so far as he could judge, 1t reached a pass that lay some two miles off, at the base of the main peak, on whose snows the priests had watched the breaking of the dawn. Part of this declivity was covered with blocks of green ice, but here and there appeared patches of earth, on which grew stunted trees, shrubs and even grass and flowers. Being very hungry, it occurred to Otter that he might find edible roots among this scanty vegetation, and with this hope he began to climb the slope, to be rewarded in due course by the discovery of a vegeta- ble that he recognized, for it was the same which had been offered to him on the oc- casion of his unlucky outbreak that had resulted in the casting away of the rIibies.
 With this poor food the dwarf filled himself, and having found bough that made him an excellent staff he continued to climb, desiring to see what there might be on the other side of tho neck.
 Arriving there without any great diff culty, Otter stood astonished, although in q general way he was not much given to admiring scenery. Below him lay the City
 
 that, fed from the inexhaustible noun tain snows, meandcred across the vast plains, no longer hidden in mist, which they had trodden or their journey. Above his head the mighty peak lowered thousands of feet into the air till 1t ended in Q summit shaped like a human finger pointing eternally to the heavens. Before him the scene was even stranger, made up as 1t was of snowy fields broken by ridges of black rock and laid one beneath the other like white sails drying upon the slopes of a sand hill.
 Gradually, as the eye travelled downward, these snowflelds grew fewer and fewer till at last they vanished altogether, and their place was taken first by stretches of grass land and finally, at the foot of the mountain, by what seemed to be O rich and level country interspcrsed with clumps of bush and forest trees.
 The first of these snowaelds lay within three furlongs of where the dwarf stood, but several hundred feet below him. Be tween the neck of the pass and this field stretched n mighty rift or chasm, with sides so sheer that no goat could have kept footing on them. Yet this gulf was nat without its bridge, for rising from the bottom of the chasm was O rock wall that formed the bed of a glacier which spanned it from side to side, being in some places comparatively level and in others having descents almost as sharp as those of e waterfall. This remarkable bridge of ice, that varied from 100 paces to few yards in width, was bordered on either side by the most fearful preci- pices, while just where its fall was sharp est and its width narrowest 1t seemed to spring across a space of nothingness like the arch of a bridge thrown from bank to bank of a river. Indeed at this point its line became so attenuated that in the gilt tering sunlight Otter could not be sure that it was not broken through for dis tance of some yards.
 Being of an inquiring mind, the dwarf decided to satisfy himself upon the mat tor. All around him lay slabs of rock, some of which were worn perfectly smooth and to the thinness of tombstone by cen- turies of polishing in tho iron jaws of glaciers. Selecting one of these of con venient size, Otter approached the edge of tho bridge, pushing tho stone before him over the frozen snow. Hero tho ice was perfect except for O slight hoar frost that ] covered 1t, for the action of the wind pre- | vented the snow from gathering on 1t, | and whenever the sun was strong enough to melt its surface 1t froze again at night, | so that no slide upon parish pond could have been moro slippery or free from inc | qualities.
 Otter gave his stone a push, and away 1t went, sometimes swiftly and sometimes | at trifling speed, according to the nature | of tho angle down which it passed, leaving . bright green ribbon upon tho ico in it | wake, whence it swept the hoar frost as sped. Once or twice ho thought that was going to stop, but it never did stop
 At length 1t approached the steepest ant ! narrowest part of the descent, down whicl 1t rushed with fearful velocity. l "Now shall sec whether the bridge broken" thought Otter, and just then tn
 stone, travelling like an arrow, camo t
 that portion of the glacier where, for
 width difficult to estimate, 1t stretche
 unsupported over space and measured onl
 some few feet across On 1t rushed, the
 seemed to leap into the air and once mor ! sped forward till it reached the farthe
 slope of snow, up which it travelled for
 distance and stopped, appearing, even t
 Otter's keen sight, no larger than a midg
 upon a tablecloth.
 Now, If a man had been seated on tha
 stone, he would have passed the bridge i
 safety" said Otter to himself, 'yet it
 one that few would care to travel unles
 sure death were behind"
 Then he determined to make a secon
 experiment., and selecting another an
 somewhat lighter stone he sent 1t upon it
 journey. It followed precisely the sam
 course as its predecessor, but when
 came to the knife blade of the bridge
 vanished.
 Now, I am sorry for that stone,
 thought Otter, ''fo1 doubtless 1t, that he
 been whole for many years, Is at this m,
 ment only little pieces"
 A third time he repeated his exper
 ment, choosing the heaviest rock that |
 could move. This messenger also leape
 into the air at tho narrowest portion
 the bridge and then passed on in safety {
 the slope of snow beyond.
 "A strange place, " thought Otter, "An l~I pray that 1t may never be my lot to rid
 one of those stone horses
 Then he turned down the mountal