The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1911-12-01

VI
makes a stay over night at the top practically
necessary With old-fashioned courtesy the
tourists are conducted to their rooms by an
able, and after meals are shown round the
church. the kennels and museum, quite as
guests in a country house. Never hint OF
pay Every tourist knows-it is universal con-
versation and all guide books tell it-that each
tourist ought to put into the aims box at least
what he (or she) would have to pay at hotel.
All tourists similarly know in advance that
the Hospice has grown poor in modern times
by continuing to feed warm and lodge % 900
mingled rich and poor annually-the grants
rents and annuites that once made 1t rich
having shrunk and dwindled This being So
what do you imagine the 5000 gay and AFRO
CANT tourists last summer put into the aims
box? Less than 1000 would have paid at
hotel That Is to say, an average Of one tour
ist in six paid up honestly. The rest sneaked
II.
This is not why the dogs have a far-away
almost disdanful look. They do not know why
they are almost hard up for their soup and
biscuits. Once they wore gold collars; now
they go about contentedy in leather dotted
with brass nail-heads They do not even know
that rich tourists have tried to buy them for
large sums-which the good canons gently re-
tuSe0; tney WOulu never Senu tnelr OOR IrlendS
down to pant and pine In the thick, hot air OF
the plain They disdain nobody. They simply
do not like our smell-the smell of overheated
overfed, gross tourist bodies. burning oxygen
and letting off poisonous gases like furnace.
Their friends, the abbes. brothers and clean
smelling wood choppers of the heights
plain livers trained down. all muscle, their
very clothes free from the grease and microbes
OF the fostering plain How. then, II they
~
snow and night and hunt out-what they
smell so easily, far away-the strong
scented denizen OF low attitudes in distress,
In men 1t would be called professional ardor
In these dogs call 1t atavism. Since St
Bernard de Mention collected the pack In tho
year A. ID. 962 almost thousand years have
elapsed. Generation after generation back
through the centuries the same patient train
ing, exclusive companonship Of wise men, alb
sence of outside foolishness and distractions
have made 1t race Of dogs apart. There are
plenty of st. Bernards up and down the valley;
but they are degenerates from the overflow
The dogs OF the HospiCe, for example take
their orders only from the abbes, or canons
not the brown brothers C"marronniers'') who
live with them feed them, and for whom they
have the greatest affection. Yet before start
ing on an expedition, an able has the chief
dogs up before him. by one II passes in
absolute silence very queer. When the pure
minded. strong-souled, traineddown. unworldly
man looks into his eyes, what passes into the
subconscious being of the cean-living, high
bred, human-companoned animal Of the thin
air and lonely heights?
Two Hospice dogs have crouched beside an
exhausted wayfarer, smuggling close TO him
on each side to keep him warm while the third
dog ran back. to lead the caravan" of rescue
to the spot
Such trio OF scouts have barked contin-
uously in the ears OF weakening, stumbling
traveller 20 keep him awake. Two trudged
so close TO him on each side as TO warm and
hold him upright-while the third butted him
along from behind a good FIVE minutes before
dashing back to bring the caravan.
Any visitor in snow time is given the
privilege to wander off and hide behind a drift
as far as he pleases covering his tracks
at pleasure. Then an able will take new
bunch of six dogs from the kennels, merely
show them your handkerchief in his uplifted
hand-of course they get the scent-ane of
they GO circling, barking, as at a game. After
two CIRCLES OF the Hospice. at the most, run
ming with their noses in the air like a French
deer hound, they have your trail and follow
Il straight TO where you are waiting 20 be
rescued Then you get your second surprise.
Instead OF digging you out and offering you
a drink OF brandy and water from the canteens
round their necks. they stand in a circle. laugh
ing at you. You know how a dog laughs?
Technically. the pass is open to circula-
tion" between the melting and reappeara1ce Of
the SHOWS in July August and September.
During this period when the road is alive with
traffic over good dry earth, and rock. the
rescue work Is limited 10 hunting up adventur-
ous tourists or tipsy "work-seeking' laborers
who have strayed fallen. In bad weather.
and as soon there is snow. the telephone
III RhamV
on the Swiss slope telephone message in
varicbly notifies the Hospice Of the passage
up OF each vehicle band OF pedestrians or soil
tary a,iyCnturer