For more than a mile they toiled up the sloping glacier which all the way lay between two vertical cliffs.
That the musk-deer was still in advance of them, they had evidence from the imprint of its tracks. Even without this evidence they could not doubt that the game was still before them. It would have been impossible for it to have scaled the cliffs on either side, so far as they had yet seen them; and as far before them as they could see, both sides appeared equally steep and impracticable.
As the hunters advanced, the cliffs gradually converged; and at the distance of a few hundred yards before them, appeared to close in—as if the ravine ended there, and there was no outlet in that direction. In fact they appeared to be approaching the apex of a very acute angle, the sides of which were formed by the black granite cliffs.
This singular formation was just what the hunters desired. If the valley ended in a cul-de-sac, then the game would be hemmed in by their approach, and they might have a chance of obtaining a shot.
In order the more surely to accomplish this, they separated, and deployed themselves into a line which extended completely across the valley. In this formation they continued to advance upward.
When they first adopted this plan, the ravine was about four hundred yards in width—so that less than one hundred lay between each two of them. These equal distances they preserved as well as they could, but now and then the cracks in the icy mass, and the immense boulders that lay over its surface, obliged one or other, of them to make considerable détours. As they advanced, however, the distance between each two grew less, in consequence of the narrowing of the valley, until at length a space of only fifty yards separated one from the other. The game could not now pass them without affording a fine opportunity for all to have a shot; and with the expectation of soon obtaining one, they kept on in high spirits.
All at once their hopes appeared to be frustrated. The whole line came to a halt, and the hunters stood regarding each other with blank looks. Directly in front of them yawned an immense crevasse in the ice, full five yards in width at the top, and stretching across the glacier from cliff to cliff.
A single glance into this great fissure convinced them that it was impassable. Their hunt was at an end. They could go no farther. Such was the conviction of all.
The glacier filled the whole ravine from cliff to cliff. There was no space or path between the ice and the rocky wall. The latter rose vertically upward for five hundred feet at least, and no doubt extended downward to as great a depth. Indeed, by looking into the fissure, they could trace the wall of rock to an immense distance downward, ending in the green cleft of the ice below. To look down into that terrible abyss made their heads reel with giddiness; and they could only do so with safety by crawling up to the edge of the lye, and peeping over.
A glance convinced one and all of them that the crevasse was impassable.