pitiful sound coming from the tent,
something between a sob and a moan, like the wailing of an Indian woman
over her dead, only infinitely subdued and anguished. I was shocked,
awed, immeasurably grieved.

"Thank you," I said; "I'm sorry. I don't want to intrude on her in her
hour of affliction. I'll come again."

"All right," she laughed tauntingly; "come again."

I had failed. I thought of turning back, then I thought I might as well
see what I could of the far-famed Chikoot, so once more I struck out.

The faces of the hundreds I met were the same faces I had passed by the
thousand, stamped with the seal of the trail, seamed with lines of
suffering, wan with fatigue, blank with despair. There was the same
desperate hurry, the same indifference to calamity, the same grim
stoical endurance.

A snowstorm was raging on the summit of the Chikoot and the snow was
drifting, covering the thousands of caches to the depth of ten and
fifteen feet. I stood on the summit of that nearly perpendicular ascent
they call the "Scales." Steps had been cut in the icy steep, and up
these men were straining, each with a huge pack on his back. They could
only go in single file. It was the famous "Human Chain." At regular
distances, platforms had been cut beside the trail, where the exhausted
ones might leave the ranks and rest; but if a worn-out climber reeled
and crawled into one of the shelters, quickly the line closed up and
none gave him a glance.

The men wore ice-creepers, so that their feet would clutch the slippery
surface. Many of them had staffs, and all were bent nigh double under
their burdens. They did not speak, their lips were grimly sealed, their
eyes fixed and stern. They bowed their heads to thwart the buffetings of
the storm-wind, but every way they turned it seemed to meet them. The
snow lay thick on their shoulders and covered their breasts. On their
beards the spiked icicles glistened. As they moved up step by step, it
seemed as if their feet were made of lead, so heavily did they lift
them. And the resting-places by the trail were never empty.

You saw them in the canyon at the trail top, staggering in the wind that
seemed to blow every way at once. You saw them blindly groping for the
caches they had made but yesterday and now fathoms deep under the
snowdrift. You saw them descending swiftly, dizzily, leaning back on
their staffs, for the down trail was like a slide. In a moment they were
lost to sight, but