“Oh, watch ye well by daylight,
For angels watch at night.”
* * * * *
Before ten days of travel had been accomplished the country had grown very wild indeed, the mountains high and rugged, some volcanic, while many of the valleys they felt they must negotiate were in places half choked with ice-boulders.
They seemed indeed to be glaciers that had been shaken and shattered by earthquake or volcanic force. But this was merely conjecture. At all events it made the progress extremely slow and hard.
The sledges had often to be unpacked and the parcels carried on the ponies’ backs and on those of the good Yak-Yaks quite over the obstructions. The animals of course had little difficulty in getting over the obstacles, but often it fell to the lot of the men to lift and carry the empty sledges.
In clear weather, and it was mostly clear, the plan of getting high up on to some hill was constantly adopted, in order to find out the most likely route.
This was not an agreeable duty, wild and weird although the scenery was. But it was one that usually fell to the lot of Slap-dash himself and one of his men.
Those Eskimos never tired.
Everything considered, they had kept their straight course with very few détours indeed, and, in ten days’ time, had made the very excellent record of a hundred and seventy miles.
Then came a wild blizzard from the south, with sheets of driving snow.