For as he, Simond and Andre Droz were marching in single file through the thin forest behind the chalets of La Brenva, a shepherd lad came running down toward them.

He was so excited that he could hardly tell the story with which he was hurrying to Courmayeur.

Only an hour before he had seen, high up on the Brenva ridge, a man waving a signal of distress.
Both Simond and Droz discredited the story.

The distance was too great; the sharpest eyes could not have seen so far.

But Chayne believed, and his heart sank within him.