The boy lay down upon his chest and peered over, but gave quite a start directly, as he felt himself touched.
“I was only hooking you by the belt, my lad,” said Dale, who had pushed the head of his axe through the boy’s belt. “You can do the same for me another time.”
Saxe flushed a little, and looked down again, feeling that Dale was treating him as if he were a child.
“Well,” said his companion, “can you see the slope?”
“No: nothing but the blue darkness—nothing.”
He drew himself away.
“It’s a horrible place,” he said.
“What are you going to do?”
“Only send a big lump of ice down.”
“I suppose that comes natural to all of us,” said Dale, smiling, and helping the lad turn over a huge block broken from one of the shattered seracs. “I never knew any one yet who did not want to send something down every hole he saw, even if it was a well.”