Rescue Dog of the High Pass

Rescue Dog of the High Pass 

by Jim Kjelgaard

First published in 1958

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

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Rescue Dog of the High Pass

by

Jim Kjelgaard

Jim Kjelgaard has long wanted to tell the story of the gallant dogs who have gone out with the monks of St. Bernard Hospice to rescue travelers lost in the deep snows of the Swiss mountain passes. Unable to find the facts, he decided to reconstruct the tale as he feels it might have been. The result is this very moving story of a simple mountain boy and his devoted dog.

Franz Halle felt he was worthless because he could not manage book learning, but his schoolmaster and the village pastor knew that the boy had a priceless knowledge all his own. The kindly priest secured work for Franz at near-by St. Bernard Hospice, helping a gentle giant of a man who made it possible for him to keep his beloved Alpine mastiff, Caesar, although the huge animal refused to earn his keep, even by turning the spit. When the scarcity of food forced Caesar's reluctant banishment, Franz—who had joined the monks in their daily patrol of the dangerous passes—proved that where even he, with all his rare knowledge of the ways of the blizzards, might fail, a dog could detect a man buried under an avalanche! So Franz and his brave helper initiated the rescue work of the St. Bernard dogs that was to become famous throughout the world.

to 

Alice Bedford

1: THE

SCHOOL

Sitting on his assigned portion of the backless wooden school bench, fourteen-year-old Franz Halle tried earnestly to concentrate on the Latin text before him. He read, "Deinde rex perterritus Herculi hunc laborem, graviorem, imposuit. Augeas—"

Very interesting, he thought, and doubtless very important. Professor Luttman, who taught the school at Dornblatt, said so, and Professor Luttman was both wise and educated. Franz himself had heard the village men say that he could discuss the classics, politics, history, higher mathematics, astronomy and the latest method of bloodletting as a cure for the ague, at[16] endless length and most thoroughly. Franz tried again.

"Deinde rex—" Surely it meant something or Professor Luttman never would have assigned it. But what? If only it were a squirrel track in the snow, a chamois doe trying to lure an eagle away from its kid, a trout in the cold little stream that foamed past Dornblatt, or an uncertain patch of snow that was sure to become an avalanche, it would be simplicity itself. But written words were never simple, not even when they were written in the German that Franz could read.

Franz made one more manful effort. Then he gave up and devoted himself to looking through the window on the south side of the school.

The mighty birches that had once grown there, and that had been so lovely to see when spring clothed their branches in tightly curled new leaves that looked oddly like baby lambs, or when the wind set trees and leaves to dancing, had been felled for half a furlong down the mountainside.

Franz smiled wistfully. Furlong—furrow long—the distance a team of oxen could pull a plow without tiring. Now there was a word he understood perfectly. Not that there were any gardens a furlong in length around Dornblatt, for not even the strongest[17] oxen could pull a plow through solid rock. Some of the villagers had even carried dirt, basket by basket, to cover the rocks and form more garden space.

Vaguely it occurred to Franz that there was something he had been doing or should do, but he had forgotten what it was. He continued to look out of the window.

The village spread below him, sturdy log buildings with living quarters for humans on the second floor and stables for the cattle beneath. The villages lined the narrow path that trailed on up the mountain and, eventually, into the mighty Alps. Here and there was a garden patch, for where there was so little land to cultivate, not even one square foot must be wasted. But most of the gardens were beyond the limits of Dornblatt itself. Summer pasturage for the village cattle, and the fields where the villagers cut most of their hay, were far above timber line.

Franz thought again of the birch trees that had been and a twinge of remorse stirred his heart. It was right and just to fell trees, but only when timber was needed for new buildings or wood was required for the village stoves. It was wrong to destroy so many beautiful birches simply because one greedy man had the power to gratify his greed.

The land upon which the school was built had belonged[18] to Emil Gottschalk, the only man in Dornblatt who had managed to acquire any wealth. It was a foregone conclusion that a site for the schoolhouse would be bought from Emil—and this was the only location that he offered. Since practically everybody else in Dornblatt was in Emil's debt, none had dared protest vehemently even though all knew that the schoolhouse, at the very foot of a steep and almost forestless mountain, was directly in the path of an avalanche and, sooner or later, would be destroyed by one.

Emil had prepared for that, too. After selling the site for a school to the citizens of Dornblatt, he had proceeded to sell them the birches. Every man in the village had helped cut and trim the trees, and every horse and ox team had been pressed into service to drag the trimmed trunks to the north side of the school. There the men, including Professor Luttman, had again fallen to and erected a breastwork that probably would stop anything except a major avalanche.

So Dornblatt had its school, but at three times the cost in money and labor that would have been necessary had any of a half dozen other sites that were available—and out of the path of avalanches—been selected.[19]

Franz straightened suddenly and grew tense. A squirrel had emerged from the far side of the clearing where the birches had been and was crossing to the near side. Franz's eyes widened, for this promised both stark drama and excitement. Squirrels lived among the trees, and almost always they were safe as long as they stayed there. But almost invariably they were doomed when they left their arboreal haunts.

Obviously not alarmed, for it was not running fast, the squirrel came a quarter of the way into the clearing. Franz knitted puzzled brows. Latin was a mystery to him, but almost without exception