"It affects people differently," he said. "I have men who refuse to make this trip. There's something about Jackson that frightens them—perhaps it is its nearness. You see, there's no other place on the globe where we pygmies dare come so close to a live glacier of this size."
"How can we go on?" Natalie asked. "We must work our boats along this bank. If the ice begins to crack anywhere near us I want you both to scamper up into the alders as fast as your rubber boots will carry you."
"What will you do?" Eliza eyed him curiously.
"Oh, I'll follow; never fear! If it's not too bad, I'll stay with the boats, of course. But we're not likely to have much difficulty at this season."
Eliza noted the intensity with which the boatmen were scanning the passage ahead, and something in O'Neil's tone told her he was speaking with an assurance he did not wholly feel.
"You have lost some men here, haven't you?" she asked.
"Yes. But the greater danger is in coming down. Then we have to get out in the current and take our chances."
"I'd like to do that!" Her lips were parted, her eyes were glowing, but Natalie gave a little cry of dismay.
"It's an utterly new sensation," O'Neil admitted. "I've been thinking of sending you up across the moraine, but the trail is bad, and you might get lost among the alders—"
"And miss any part of this! I wouldn't do it for worlds." Eliza's enthusiasm was irresistible, and the expedition was soon under way again.