erously slippery, and in climbing the men had to hold to jutting
icicles for support.

Ootah was ahead. At times sheer walls of ice confronted him. At
certain places there had been drifts, at others glacial fragments had
slipped from the mountain above. Before these almost insuperable walls
Ootah would pause and with his axe hew steps in the hard ice.

They slowly toiled ahead for an hour. Then a blank sloping ice wall,
twice the height of Ootah, blocked the path. He grasped his axe and
began hewing a series of ascending steps. He breathed with difficulty;
the air in the high altitude made respiration difficult. He was soon
bathed in perspiration. The moisture of his breath and beads of sweat
froze about his face, covering him with an icy mask. His eyelashes
froze together. He had to pause to melt the quickly congealing tears.
He suffered unendurably. Finally his axe split; the ice was harder
than his steel. He uttered an impatient exclamation.

"Thy axe!" he called to Koolotah.

Koolotah swung his axe in the air and over the dog team separating
them. Ootah leaped from his feet and caught the axe as it soared above
him. In a half hour the step-like trail was cut, and he clambered over
the wall. Digging their nails into the indentations, the dogs
followed. Then Koolotah and his team scaled the obstruction.

Koolotah felt his heart choking him as it seemed to enlarge within;
Ootah, in truth, was not entirely unafraid. Both knew that a slip of
the foot would plunge them to instant death. As they ascended the
trail, the gathering clouds surrounded them. They could no longer see
their dogs. They could not even perceive the blackness of the chasm to
their right. Above and below they were enveloped in a silver mist.
Only the reflected glitter of the moonlight on jutting icicles on the
opposite indicated the depths so perilously near. Through the mist
Koolotah saw the green and crimson eyes of baleful creatures that
might, at any moment, spring upon him.

When they reached the inland valley they were both spent in strength.
In sheer relief from the agonized suspense of the journey they sank on
their sledges and lay palpitating for an hour or more. But the cold
froze their perspiring garments and they had to rise and exercise so as
not to freeze to death. Ootah knew that no time could be lost. In the
interior mountains the breathing of the hill spirits was becoming more
uneasy. And Ootah noted w