The morning had broken clear, the day was sunny and cloudless.
"I think there may be wind to-morrow," he replied, raising his face and judging by signs unappreciable to other than the trained eyes of a guide.
"But we will try, eh, monsieur ?" he cried, recovering his spirits.

"We will try.

We will be the first on the Brenva ridge for two years." But there Chayne knew him to be wrong.

There was another party somewhere on the great ridge at this moment.

"Had _it_ happened ?" he asked himself.
"How was it to happen ?" What kind of an accident was it to be which could take place with a guide however worthless, and which would leave no suspicion resting on Garratt Skinner?
There would be no cutting of the rope.