Before midnight the threatened storm burst: the gale howled through the gorges of the sierra and along the narrow street of Valdama. Thickly, too, fell the snow; before dawn the whole landscape lay enveloped in the white mantle, and the bye-ways of the hamlet were choked to the lintels. Snow-wreaths hung in majestic forms over each prominent escarpment, threatening destruction to the villagers' stock of olives, figs, and vines which grew beneath. The older men gathered in knots discussing Bernál's chances of escape from the higher regions; no help was possible, and the general opinion was that till the gale had partially swept the dry powdery snow into the ravines and hollows, his descent would be perilous, even if possible. Again the day passed by without sign of the missing bridegroom. The _dichos_ were postponed, and the hamlet slept with a heavy load of doubt and fear oppressing its mind.
Thus passed two days--three since the adventurous hunter had set forth, but on the fourth morning it was thought an ascent might be attempted. Three search parties, each composed of three mountaineers, started in different directions, but at nightfall they returned without news or trace of lost Bernál.
Next morning the search was renewed. Towards noon the party, led by our friend Claudio, descried among the bare rocks of a ridge high above them a moving object. Their cries and shots attracted attention, and presently poor Vasco, Bernál's faithful companion, struggled to reach them. The three men decided to continue calling out Bernál's name, in order to convey to the dog the idea that they were in search of his master; but this the wise beast seemed to have intuitively understood, for he immediately set out in the direction whence he had come. Claudio and his two companions followed Vasco's lead for nearly a league, when the dog stopped and commenced scratching away the snow from below a projecting rock. Here were found the "alforjas" (wallet) of the lost man, still containing the bread and olives with which he had set out. Vasco at once continued his course, leading the way to one of the deepest and most magnificent _cañons_ of the whole sierra. Here, on the very verge of a precipice of a thousand feet sheer, the dog directed the rescuers to his master's gun, which lay buried in the snow within a foot of the abyss. The gun was _cocked_--a sure sign to the _serranos_ that at the moment of leaving it Bernál had been in presence of game, momentarily expecting a shot. Further the dog would not, or could not, go; yet no sign of Bernál could be seen on the crag-top. Clearly he must have slipped, fallen over into the tremendous abyss beneath. The men separated, two going to right and left to seek some spot, some cleft or ledge, by which the crag might be descended, the third remaining above to guide the search. It was a perilous service on those slippery, ice-clad rocks. After an hour's labour, Claudio managed to reach a ledge midway down the precipice, just beneath the spot where Guàrro remained on the height above: and here the dog (which had steadily followed the climber whose course at the moment led in the right direction) at once indicated a point above some big boulders which lay balanced on the narrow shelf. Here, beneath the frozen snow, lay poor Bernál Gonzalvo, almost every bone in his once shapely form smashed into splinters by that terrible fall of 500 feet. And there, on that dizzy ledge, his remains lie still. There they had to be left; for it was found impossible to remove the body, or to carry it along the ledges and "chimneys" by which the rescue party had descended. It was, after all, an appropriate resting-place for the luckless ibex-hunter. The three men heaped up a pile of stones to protect his remains from the maw of vulture or prowling wolf, and there we may leave him in peace.