White Motley

for the English newspapers. People who were out of the hotel by nine o'clock returned to tell their f

the hotel to peer down into that unsurpassable ravine and to say that the cluster of black dots immediately below them stood for the church and streets of Sierre. To the right and le

orn and the shining glaciers which are the windows to that supreme escarpment. Look farther to the right across the vast abyss, and you have Sion in the hollow and for your heights the Becs de Bosson-or farther yet, the Aiguilles Rouges and all their story

lacking something in variety, are yet incomparable in the delights they afford to the winter sportsman. Here the climber seeks the wider fields of untrod

hile to speculate upon the events of the long journey from Egypt and to wonder if any in the hotel would know her, presently her ears became aware of an unusual clatter b

; boys from the universities-all dressed in the once-white sweaters, the short knee-breeches and the regulation boots. Troops of girls and of ladi

ared upon the plateau with Miss Bessie Bethune, and having bestowed upon her the gift of a few buckets

ustoms' man at Pontarlier, so I don't know, but I'll bet it's nearly ten. Beastly sh

go up and crack him-which suggestion, adopted nem. con., left Miss Bessie to herself for

down to see the rac

o; what time

I shall race by myself, and then they'll have to give me

me to your assistance. Is

ves all by himself in the chalet up there-such a wonderful man, and always going about as though he were looking for his own soul. You'll see him in a minute, for he's just gone up-but I don't suppose h

d "Achtung!" and a figure came flying down the ice-run which finishes at the very door of the hotel. Roughly clad in a grey sweater and check breeches, wearing no hat, and showing a thick crop of black hair, Mr. Benjamin Benson, for it was he, clung to his toboggan wil

a quarter to ten she also joined the throng before the hotel door, and was immediat

I am time-keeper to-day, and I can show you just how it is done. Everyone tob

t of the course. To his question whether she had discovered any friends at Andana, she replied in the negative; but added that Mrs.

t very self-conscious person, Ian Kavanagh, among the number. Hardly had he

d her, as he took his stand near by. She answered with

won't ask. Eating their heads off, I suppose. Let me get you a seat; this sun takes it out

oggans as they passed under the little bridge. Harry Clavering watched all this cere

ng-post," he said with a smile of entreaty. "There's no fl

, with a look at the "little widow" which he meant to be unutt

d I have no right to mention it. Can you see quite well, Mrs. Kennaird?-the start is up there, you know, by the little white cottage. I take the time directly the red flag is lowered, and the man at the finish signals to me with his flag when the course is finished. This is what we call an ice-run. They floo

valley at her feet and the whited woods above. The sense of vast space and dominion delighted her-the merry people; the skaters upon the rink to the right of her; the curlers upon the ri

nt," she said, "do two people

vering wa

as you will see presently. They go so very fast. Why, it's more than a mile from the cottage up there to the door of the hotel, and the

ies. How very noble of us! And the man

e, there is young Bob Otwa

ods above to the door of the hotel upon the plateau. Half-way down, the track swept suddenly to the right, and then to the left again-and here were the high banks of snow to ease the corners and make them possible at high spe

's

ure to take a toss." And it was a true saying, for Master Bob came at the corner li

e in Canada, and did not believe it possible to do it better in Switzerland. Then a second competitor, Dick Fenton, started, and he came down prettily enough, riding low at the banks and getting a splendid course in the final straight. It was quite thrilling to see him, th

tist in the background to suggest that they never would have got their living as "models." But they flashed down the ice-run with a bravado that was incontestable, and their corners were, in Bob Otway's words, "divine." They were followed by a pretty little girl with a superb figure, who considerately parted company with her toboggan on the second bank and went ha

form, she craned forward in her chair to see that dashing youth, with his curly brown hair and his frank open face and his contempt of other rivals. He had just left Eton and was going into the army, they told her. And none at Andana could keep pace with him, whether upon skis or skates. To be sure, he rode magnificently, taking the corners with unerring judgment,

ne, who asked him if he were going to beat record, he shouted back over his shoulder that he meant to try. It was evident that he had little skill in repartee; and when anyone wished him luck he took the words as he found them and missed the irony. To Bob

became entirely astonishing. No one at Andana had ever taken the earlier bends of the course so fast and so furiously, and it seemed quite impossible that he could remain upon the course at all. Benny, however, was a sticker. "Where I drop, there I lie," was one of the maxims of his life, and so he lay very close to his tobo

nd bank to a long straight run carried Benny to the first of the monstrous corners, and here he must be unshipped. As the flash of a blackbird against a curtain of the snow, he rushed the straight and struck the great mound which defended the bend. People saw him shoot high into the air, then fall again with hands gripping the bars of the runners, an

ved Mr. Benson had won. Upon which a curious, half-mocking silence fell upon the company. In a way its pride of judgment was hurt, and it had not the manliness to say so. That the Grand Prix, the race of the year, should be won by a half-savage sailor-man, who knew no more of the science of the game than a heathen Chinee, was surely an insult to the elect of Andana!

nda of the hotel, and quite regardless of the formalitie

y mean that,

ride has had many falls to-

en, as simply as a boy, he added: "I k

ou knew you would," and with a smile that he w

e fell there and then to wondering if it were the