For a time he made good progress along the cornice, and in the afternoon he reached the neck. At the end of the ridge Stannard's tracks forked. One row of footmarks crossed a steep snow-bank running up a peak; the other went along the hollow neck.
"All the outfit went up the neck and then two or three turned back," Peter remarked after examining the trampled snow.
Deering nodded. "Stannard sent them back and pushed ahead with Gillane to look for a line down the other side. When we get across we'll see what he was up against."
At the end of the neck they stopped and Deering frowned. He had been longer than he thought and a pale illumination behind a peak indicated that the sun was low. In the valley below, he saw a frozen lake and a dark, winding band he knew was timber on a river bank. He had food, and if he could reach the trees he need not bother about the frost. A Canadian grub-hoe, made for cutting roots, is a useful tool, and he could build a wall of bark and branches, light a fire and brew hot tea. The trouble was, to get down to the friendly pines.
In front of him, a snow-field sloped to a spot at which two uneven, converging rows of dark rocks ought to have met. The rocks were the tops of precipices, but the point of their intersection was cut out, and a glacier began at the gap. Deering could see for a short distance down the glacier, until it plunged across the top of a steeper pitch, and when he used his glasses he noted its surface was crumpled, as if it broke in angry waves. In fact, it was rather like a rapid suddenly frozen at the top of a fall. Deering knew it was an ice-fall and the waves were giant blocks. The rocks at the side were very steep and veined by snow.
"Nothing's doing there!" he remarked. "I don't see Stannard, but he won't find a useful line. Let's look for the boys."
They turned and, following the tracks along the neck, after some time went round a buttress that broke the front of the range. On the other side three people occupied a little hollow in the rock. One got up awkwardly.
"It's Peter!" he shouted. "Why, Deering, you grand old sport!"
Deering gave Jimmy his hand and noted that his look was strained and his face was pinched.
"Miss Laura put me on your track and Mr. Jardine wanted to come along," he said and studied the others, who did not get up.