The good monks welcomed me to their hospice, as they do all strangers who stop for food and shelter, and treated me as kindly as if I had been a brother.

In the morning one of them took me out to the kennels, and showed me the dogs that are trained to look for travellers in the snow.

You may imagine with what pleasure I followed him, and listened to the tales he told me.
"He said there is not as much work for the dogs now as there used to be years ago.

Since the hospice has been connected with the valley towns by telephone, travellers can inquire about the state of the weather and the paths, before venturing up the dangerous mountain passes.

Still, the storms begin with little warning sometimes, and wayfarers are overtaken by them and lost in the blinding snowfall.