Away in the distance I could see a white stream pouring from the precipitous edge of an elevated glacier; this seeming mountain torrent I knew was not water, but ice, thousands of tons of which having cracked and broken from the edge of the glacier, were now being dashed over the hard face of the rock into minute fragments.
The white stream could be seen to decrease perceptibly in size, from a broad sheet to a wide band, a narrow ribbon, a line, a hair and then disappear altogether. While the distant mountains were still growling, mumbling and playing shuttlecock with the echoes a timid chief hare went hopping across a green half-acre of grass at the damp edge of a melting snow patch in my path. Overhead a golden eagle sailed with a small mammal in its talons; strange reddish-colored bumblebees busied themselves in a bunch of flowers growing in a crevice in the rocks at my feet.
But my eye could discern no larger creatures in this Alpine pasture land; not only could I see no sheep or goats, but not a sign of my friend. He had vanished from the face of the picture as completely as if the master artist had erased him with one mighty sweep of his paint brush.
When I viewed the lonely landscape with no human being in sight, I confess to experiencing a creepy sensation and a strong inclination to flee, but I knew not in what direction to run. I was in a rough basin-shaped depression among the mountain peaks, and I sat on a large rock with my back to a black chasm. From my elevated position I could see a long distance. Strange fancies creep into one’s head on such occasions and play havoc with previous well-founded beliefs. To me, poor fool of a tenderfoot, Big Pete had melted into the thinnest of thin air, such as is only found in high altitudes, and somehow I wondered whether the Wild Hunter had had anything to do with it.
How could I tell that I myself was not invisible?
I hauled myself up short there for I realized that such folly was not good to have tumbling around in my brain. I figuratively pulled myself back to earth, and to steady my nerves reached into my pack and brought out several hard bits of bannock that I had stored there. I was dreadfully hungry and I munched these with enthusiasm, meanwhile keeping a sharp eye out for Big Pete, and between times making the acquaintance of the little chief hare who, as he scuttled about among the rocks, looked me over curiously.