“Ask Chingatok if he ever saw this range before,” said the Captain to Anders, on recovering from his first feeling of surprise.
No, Chingatok had never seen it, except, indeed, the tops of the bergs—at sea, in the far distance—but he had often heard of it from some of his countrymen, who, like himself, were fond of exploring. But that sea of ice was not there, he said, when he had passed on his journey southward. It had drifted there, since that time, from the great sea.
“Ah! the great sea that he speaks of is just what we must find and cross over,” muttered the Captain to himself.
“But how are we to cross over it, uncle?” asked Leo.
The Captain replied with one of his quiet glances. His followers had long become accustomed to this silent method of declining to reply, and forbore to press the subject.
“Come now, boys, get ready to descend to the plain. We’ll have to do it with caution.”
There was, indeed, ground for caution. We have said that they had climbed to an elevated plateau on one of the small bergs which formed the outside margin of the rugged ice. The side of this berg was a steep slope of hard snow, so steep that they thought it unwise to attempt the descent by what in Switzerland is termed glissading.
“We’ll have to zig-zag down, I think,” continued the Captain, settling himself on his sledge; but the Captain’s dogs thought otherwise. Under a sudden impulse of reckless free-will, the whole team, giving vent to a howl of mingled glee and fear, dashed down the slope at full gallop. Of course they were overtaken in a few seconds by the sledge, which not only ran into them, but sent them sprawling on their backs right and left. Then it met a slight obstruction, and itself upset, sending Captain Vane and his companions, with its other contents, into the midst of the struggling dogs. With momentarily increasing speed this avalanche of mixed dead and living matter went sliding, hurtling, swinging, shouting, struggling, and yelling to the bottom. Fortunately, there was no obstruction there, else had destruction been inevitable. The slope merged gradually into the level plain, over which the avalanche swept for a considerable distance before the momentum of their flight was expended.
When at length they stopped, and disentangled themselves from the knot into which the traces had tied them, it was found that no one was materially hurt. Looking up at the height down which they had come, they beheld the Eskimos standing at the top with outstretched arms in the attitude of men who glare in speechless horror. But these did not stand thus long. Descending by a more circuitous route, they soon rejoined the Captain’s party, and then, as the night was far advanced, they encamped on the edge of the ice-plain, on a part that was bathed in the beams of the ever-circling sun.
That night at supper Captain Vane was unusually thoughtful and silent.