Jim had not gone two hundred yards before he began to meet with evidences of the cataclysm in the scattered rocks and broken trees. A little farther on he came to the edge of the flood of rocks that had poured down from the mountain, obliterating the forest up to this point. He circled the base of the gigantic heap until he came to a point where he could overlook the entire height. This was on the edge of the ravine behind Joe Mixer's camp.
Jim stood, struck to the soul with amazement. The genii had waved their wands and the face of the earth was changed. There was no stream below him; above where he stood there was no longer any gulch or any cliff rising above it. The mountain had stepped forward and stamped them out. A great new spur of raw rubble reeking with yellow dust now reached across in front of him, blotting out the forest like grass as far as he could see on that side. The entrance to the Bowl of the Mountains was somewhere under the middle of the mountain; no man could tell now where it had been, so complete was the change. Joe Mixer's camp had not been in the direct line of the slide, but tons and tons of rock had overflowed at the sides like a liquid, and the place where the fire had been was drowned fathoms deep.
Jim remembered the scream they had heard. "Nothing to do here!" he thought grimly. He returned to Kitty.
Nahnya and Philippe reached a little plateau of rock after a long climb, and sat down to breathe themselves. Their faces were calm. For the moment they were concerned only with their journey. On every side great snowy peaks looked down on them over each other's shoulders. The white fields dipped almost to the level where they sat. Behind them, and far below, the forest ended in the throat of a valley; before them lay a shallower valley of a bleak aspect. It supported only a little scrub and a variegated carpet of moss, and the gorges on either hand were choked with ice.
"This is a divide," Nahnya said. She spoke in Cree. "St. Jean Bateese tell me this trail. The water out of that valley go to the Burning River, he say. It is five days' journey from here."
"I have heard of that river," said Philippe. "It goes to the place of the rising sun, and joins with the Great River of the Ice."
The sun had disappeared some time since behind the peaks on their left hand. Philippe cast a look at the threatening sky. "It will rain to-night," he said. "Let us go down. There is nothing here to make a shelter. There is no wood for a fire."
"Wait a little," Nahnya said. "We must talk—what we do after."
Her simple-sounding words had an electric effect. Both faces changed subtly; hers became wary; his sullen. They avoided each other's eyes.
"We will do what comes," said Philippe, feigning unconcern. "We will walk to the Burning River, and make a raft and float to the Great River of the Ice. Then we can go where we want."