Only a drop of water, but it was the end of May; the snows would be melting, and before long millions of such drops would have formed and run together to make trickling rivulets coursing along the snow; these would soon grow into rushing torrents, and the snow would fall away, and he would be free.
“What madness!” he groaned. “It will thaw rapidly till the sun is off, and then freeze once more, and perhaps another avalanche will come. Yes, I shall be thawed out some day, and some one may come along in the future and find my bones.”
He shuddered, for it was getting black within once more, and a delirious feeling of horror began to master him, bringing with it thoughts of what might come.
Bears would be torpid in their snow-covered lairs; but wolves!
He felt as if he could shriek aloud, and he had to set his teeth hard as his eyes rolled round and up and down the gorge in search of some wandering pack that would scent him out at once, and in imagination he went through the brain-paralysing horror of seeing them approach, with their red, hungry, glaring eyes, their foam-slavered lips and glistening teeth.
There they were, five, seven, nine of them, gliding over the snow a hundred yards away, their shadows cast by the sun upon the dazzling white surface, and he uttered a hoarse cry and his head sank sideways as he closed his eyes in the reaction.
No wolves, only the few magnified shapes of a covey of snow grouse, the ryper of the Scandinavian land, which, after running for a while, rose and passed over him with whirring wings, seeking the lower part of the valley, where the snow was swept away.
Abel drew a long, deep breath, and then set his teeth once more as he upbraided himself for his cowardice.
For was he not on the highway—the main track to the golden land; and was it not a certainty that before long other adventurers would pass that way?
What was that?