Soon Prescott's pipe dropped from his hand and, failing in a drowsy
attempt to find it, he went to sleep.

At breakfast the next morning he learned that a man answering Kermode's
description had spent a night there eight or nine days ago. That showed
that he was gaining, and he forced his pace all day. At sunset he made a
fire beside a frozen lake, and after three or four days of arduous toil
reached another camp. From the few men remaining there he learned that
Kermode had left the spot a week earlier with a companion whose work had
been interfered with by the frost. It was understood that they intended
to examine a mineral vein the railroad hand had discovered in a valley
some distance off, and when Prescott had ascertained where it lay he set
off on their trail. The camp was well supplied with provisions and he
bought a quantity.

He felt more cheerful now. It looked as if the end of his long search
were near, since there was every reason to believe he would join the men
before they could test the claim. On the second day he laboriously
ascended a steep slope leading out of a valley he had followed, a broken
line of footprints running upward in front of him. This seemed to
indicate that the great ridge ahead could be crossed, though when he
glanced at the ramparts of dark rock the task looked insuperable.
Prescott knew nothing of mountaineering, but he judged that Kermode's
companion must be accustomed to the ranges.

The slope grew sharper, there seemed to be an unbroken wall of rock
ahead; but, climbing higher, Prescott saw a small smooth track running up
the barrier. It was obviously a gully filled with snow and its steepness
suggested that the ascent of it might prove beyond his powers; but the
footprints led on to where it began. After following them to the spot,
Prescott sat down on a stone to gather breath. He looked upward with a
sinking heart. The hollow was deep and narrow--a cleft in the vast ridge
of rock, which was glazed with ice. In places it looked precipitous, but
there seemed to be no way of working round the flank of the mountain.
Then Prescott noticed that the snow was pitted with small holes, about
two feet apart, from which he concluded that the prospectors had carried
a grubhoe, a tool resembling a mountaineer's ice-ax. He might get up by
using these footholds.

Before starting he carefully adjusted his pack, and slung the ax where it
seemed least likely to do him an injury. Then he found th