A mighty glacier barred the way, and the peak on which they stood was its highest point. It stretched out far ahead. It reached beyond such range of vision as the Arctic night permitted. It sloped away down, down, so gradually, yet so deeply, so widely that it warned him of the opening of the jaws of a mighty valley, through the heart of which there probably flowed the broad bosom of a very great river. The play of the phosphorescent light was the reflection of Unaga's lights caught by the myriad facets of broken ice upon its tumbled surface.
Steve nodded.
"Yes. We make this," he cried, in a fashion to forbid all discussion. Then after a pause that gave his decision due effect: "There's a valley away out there. And I guess it'll likely hand us the things we got to know. We've beaten those darn hills. We've beaten the snow and ice—and the cold. The things we're going to find down there need beating, too."
He turned from the barrier which left him undismayed. A great light was shining in his eyes as he passed Julyman by. They rested eagerly, questioningly, upon the unemotional face of Oolak whose keen understanding he knew to be profound.
"Well?" he demanded in the fashion of a man aware that his question is not in vain.
Oolak turned. He raised his face, and his sensitive nostrils distended with a deep intake of breath. A moment later he made a swift gesture with the gee-pole on which he had been supporting himself.
"I mak' him smell. So!"
He spoke with unusual animation.
Steve had been seeking and waiting for just such words.
"You smell—what?" he demanded.