Prince Jan, St. Bernard | Page 6

on Jan's head. "We send out four dogs each
morning--two younger ones and two of the old ones. One pair goes on
the trail down the Italian slope toward Aosta, the other travels the
Swiss path leading to Martigny. None of them turns back until the last
cabin of refuge has been reached, where they look to see if any person
is waiting. It is not unusual for the dogs to stay out all night in a hard
storm. There have been many instances of their remaining away for two
days and nights, without food or shelter, though at any time they could
have come home."

"Our guide showed us the cabin," interrupted the older man. "The
footprints of the dogs proved they had been there a short time before us.
We followed their tracks until the storm covered them. It was a lucky
thing the storm did not break earlier."
"The dogs would have found you, Mr. Pixley," the monk replied. "You
see, since we have had a telephone from the Hospice, each time
travellers start up the trails, we know when they leave Martigny or
Aosta and how many are on the way. If they do not reach here in
reasonable time, or a storm breaks, we send out the dogs at once. It was
much harder in the other days, before we had telephones, for we could
not tell how many poor souls were struggling in the snow. The dogs
seemed to understand, too, and so they kept on searching until they
believed they had found all."
"I would not have attempted this trip had I not been assured that it was
too early for a bad storm," said Mr. Pixley. "It is foolhardy, not
courageous, to face these mountains in a winter storm. I cannot imagine
any one being so rash as to try it, but I suppose many do?"
"During the winter only poor peasants travel the Pass," was Brother
Antoine's answer. "They cross from Italy to seek work in the vineyards
of France or Switzerland for the summer. When summer is over they
return home this way, because it would mean a long and expensive trip
by rail, which would take all they have earned for a whole year. An
entire family will travel together, and often the youngest will be a babe
in its mother's arms."
"I should think they would wait till later in the summer, and take no
risks."
"Only the good God knows when a snow storm will overtake one in the
Pass of Great St. Bernard," Brother Antoine said. "Even in our summer
months, when a light shower of rain falls in the Valley below, it
becomes a heavy snow up here, and many people are taken unawares.
After winter really begins, in September, the snow is often from seven
to ten feet deep and the drifts pile up against the walls of the Hospice as
high as the third story roof."

"I had planned to visit Berne," Mr. Pixley spoke now, "but after this
sample of your winter weather I have decided to return home to
California. I do not enjoy snow storms. We have none where I live, you
know."
Brother Antoine nodded. "Yes, I know; but I hope some day you will
visit Berne and see Barry. His skin was mounted and is kept in the
Museum at Berne. You know his record? He saved forty-two people
and died in 1815, just after the terrible storm that cost the lives of
almost all the Hospice dogs. Only three St. Bernards lived through
those days--Barry, Pluto, and Pallas. A few crawled home to die of
exhaustion and cold; the rest lie buried under thousands of feet of snow,
but they all died like heroes!"
"A glorious record!" exclaimed the younger man, who had been patting
Jan while the others talked. "I remember, when I was a very small boy,
that I found a picture in a book. It showed a St. Bernard dog digging a
man from the snow, and last night I recognized the picture in that
painting which hangs over the fireplace in the refectory."
"It was a gift from a noted artist," replied the monk. "The dogs used to
carry a little saddle with a warm shawl, but the extra weight was hard
on them, so we do not use the saddle any longer, but a flagon, or
wooden keg of white brandy that we call 'kirsch,' is fastened to the
collar, together with a bell, so that the tinkling will tell that help is near,
even though it may be too dark for any one to see the dog."
"I notice that most of the dogs are short-haired," the grey-eyed man
observed. "Such fur as this pup's would afford better protection against
the cold. He