Julyman's resources of imagination were being sorely taxed.
Steve nodded.
"Yes," he said. "It isn't wind now. There's no wind. It's the air. It's warm. It's getting warmer. Later it'll get hot as hell."
He drew a profound breath. He felt that victory was very near. It only needed——
"We got to beat on all we know," he said, examining the brilliant heavens. "We need to grab every moment of this weather. We don't know. We can't guess the things waiting on us. Yes. We'll 'mush' on."
His tones were deep. The restraint of years which the Northland had bred into him was giving way before the surge of a hope that was almost certainty. And his order was obeyed by men who knew no law but his will.
But for all the urgency of his mandate, for all his efforts, progress slackened from the moment the first hill was passed. From the seemingly limitless plains of snow, rolling maddeningly in a succession of low hills and shallow hollows, now it seemed that Nature spurned the milk and water fashioning of her handiwork, and had hurled the rest of the world into a wreckage of broken, barren hills.
Into the midst of this chaos Steve plunged.
For awhile the confusion robbed him of all certainty. It not infrequently left decision floundering. The mountains leapt at him with a rush from every side, confusing direction and reducing even instinct to something like impotence. With familiarity, however, his trained mind adapted itself. Then the rush went on with the old irresistible confidence.
But human endurance was sorely tested. The tasks often became well-nigh insuperable. There were moments when dogs and Indians lay beaten in the midst of their labours, without will, without energy to stir another yard. It was at such times that despair knocked at the strong heart of the man who had never learned to yield, and who had never quite known defeat.