The ice-rent or crevasse was thousands of feet deep, an indication of the ice-field’s depth. The two lines of crests were in reality the tops of lofty mountain chains, their intervening space filled almost to the top with slowly moving ice; a glacier with a torrent of water flowing through its base.
“He Sank to His Knees, Dizzy and Scared”
Pic returned to the Mammoth and explained matters as best he could. There was a deep crack in the ice and the water running through it made much disturbance and noise. He would not ask his friend to jump over the crack; it was too wide for that; nor would he ask him to go near it. All that Hairi need do was to follow. Pic would lead him around it and to a place of safety.
The Mammoth appeared much relieved and consented to move on. Pic led him on a line parallel to the crevasse until the latter ended in a pile of shattered ice-blocks. Here the glacier’s surface was much broken and the two friends were obliged to watch their steps carefully on the slippery ice to avoid bad tumbles. In one place the surface inclined to form a chute or narrow slide, and Hairi in particular had a slow, hard time of it reaching the bottom. He and Pic were so busy finding their way around the end of the crevasse that they had neither eyes nor ears for that which followed in their wake. It was a shaggy-haired animal with nose held closely to the ground and following the same route over which Pic and the Mammoth had just traveled. Where the path turned at right angles, the newcomer looked up and saw the crevasse yawning in front of him. The sight threw him into a panic. Away he tore like mad along the ice-cliff squealing, “Oowee, oowee!” at the top of his lungs. Once he slipped and fell terribly near the dreadful gulf. He rose trembling with fear. His vocal cords became paralyzed and he could not utter a sound. He staggered toward the ice-hummocks near the end of the crevasse, foam-flecked and steaming with the dew of death. The ground suddenly fell away in front of him and he began to slide. Too late; he uttered a last despairing squeak, then resigned himself to the inevitable, and with eyes tightly shut, went skidding rapidly on his downward flight to the unknown horrors awaiting him.