The Indians continued the regular movements of their paddles, but those of the white men were idle, and for some little time not a word was spoken. Before them was a basin, which they were now entering, less than a quarter of a mile in width. All about them was an unbroken line of snow—here close at hand, there miles away—patched toward its lower border with occasional masses of green or gray. Beneath the edge of the snow line was the sombre gray of the mountain side, dark and forbidding. Still farther down the slope scanty and ill-nourished timber grew in scattering clumps or single trees, down to the verge of the precipices that overhung the water's edge. To the south and east the hills rose sharply and continuously, forming an unbroken wall until the snow level was reached; but toward the northeast this wall did not exist, and a wide but steep valley, the ancient bed of a tremendous glacier, stretched away for miles toward the snowy heights of the interior. The water before them seemed like a beautiful lake lying among the mountain peaks. In its unruffled surface each detail of the walls of rock that shut it in on every hand was mirrored with faithful accuracy.
Down the great valley which opened to the northeast, among, over, and under enormous masses of rock, whose harsh and rugged outlines were softened by no appearance of verdure, a large river, the course of which could be traced far back toward the heights, poured, in a series of white falls. They could watch it until it became no more than a delicate white thread, and at last it could not be distinguished from the snowdrifts that lay in the ravine near its source.
Beyond this valley, to the north, the rocks again became steep with overhanging precipices rising from the water's edge. About them great snow fields stretched away toward Mount Albert, showing here and there, by their broken white or sky-blue color some ice river that ploughed its way down the slope.
It took the white men some time to take in all the Inlet's details, and to become accustomed to their tremendous surroundings. At last Hugh turned to Jack, and said: "Son, did you ever imagine a place like this?"
"No," said Jack, "I never had a notion that in all the world there was anything like this,—so grand and so beautiful. It makes one feel as if he dare not speak aloud. It comes pretty near like being in church."
"Right you are," said Hugh. "I don't believe I ever felt so solemn in my whole life. Did you ever see such rocks, or such snow, or such a river as that one over there? Did you ever see anything that seemed to you as big as this does? I thought I had been in sightly places, and seen high mountains, but this beats them all."
"It's a wonderful sight," said Fannin, from the bow. "I've lived twenty years in British Columbia, but this beats anything I've ever seen."
"Yes," said Hugh. "It's something that you can't talk about much, in fact. A man is poor for words here."
"And just think," said Jack, "how cold and dark it was when we started in, and then how suddenly the light and beauty of everything came to us."
"Yes," said Fannin, "but that's not so surprising. You see this inlet is so narrow and shut in on every side by high mountains, that the air here does not feel the sun until near midday. The temperature of this place must be a good deal lower than that of its surroundings; but just as soon as the air is warmed up it rises and carries the mist away with it."