"It's snowing!" he whispered.
Mukoki lifted his face. Great solitary flakes of snow fell upon it.
"She snow hard—soon. Mebby cover snow-shoe trails!"
"And if it does—we're safe!" There was a vibrant joy in Wabi's voice.
For a full minute Mukoki held his face to the sky.
"Hear small wind over chasm," he said.
"She come from south. She snow hard—now—up there!"
They went on, stirred by new hope. Rod could feel that the flakes were coming thicker. The three now kept close to the chasm wall in their search for the rift. How changed all things were at night! Rod's heart throbbed now with hope, now with doubt, now with actual fear. Was it possible that he could not find it? Had they passed it among some of the black shadows behind? He saw no rock that he recognized, no overhanging crag, no sign to guide him. He stopped, and his voice betrayed his uneasiness as he asked:
"How far do you think we have come?"
Mukoki had gone a few steps ahead, and before Wabi answered he called softly to them from close up against the chasm wall. They hurried to him and found him standing beside the rift.