grew more heavy, and the obstacles were terrible to
surmount.

But he knew he was in the right track through the pathless waste of
heaped-up snow. There was no mistaking that awful gorge, with the rocks
piled up like Titanic walls on either side. He knew that he could not
go wrong. All he had to do was to persevere, and he plodded on.

"Never mind if it's only yards instead of miles surmounted," he
muttered. "They are so many yards nearer the winning post."

At last, as he fought his way on, with his unwonted exertions beginning
to tell mentally and bodily, he broke out talking wildly to fight back
the horrible sensation of depression, and was brought to a standstill,
the sledge having jammed between two blocks of ice-covered rock; and he
stood for some minutes gazing round hopelessly at the fast-dimming
scene, which had looked picturesque in the morning, but appeared awful
now.

"I ought to have had a companion," he muttered, "if it had only been a
dog."

He stood still, staring at the precipices on either side, whose chasms
were beginning to look black; then at his jammed-in sledge; and he felt
that he must drag it out and go on again, for night was coming on, and
he could not camp where he was.

Then as he was wearily and slowly stooping down to drag the sledge back,
he made a sudden bound as if electrified, tried to run, tripped, and
fell heavily.

For all at once there was a roar like thunder, a terrible rushing sound,
the echoes of the mountains seemed to have been let loose, and his hair
began to bristle, while a cold perspiration gathered on his face as he
listened to the sounds dying away in rumbling whispers.

"Away up to the right," he said to himself as he gazed in that
direction, realising that it was a snow-fall. Thousands of tons had
gone down somewhere out of sight; but he was safe, and giving the sledge
a jerk, he set it free, guided it over the snow, and prepared for
another start.

But that avalanche had somewhat unnerved him, for he had been looking
out for a place to camp, and it now seemed madness to think of coming to
a halt there.

"Must find a safer place," he thought; and now fresh dangers began to
suggest themselves. Would there be wolves in these mountains?
Certainly there must be bears; and dragging off one of his big fur
gloves, he took out and examined his revolver, before replacing it in
its leather holster. He glanced, too, at his rifle in its woollen case,
bound on