The surface of the glacier appeared to be that which they all knew. The only feature for disquiet were the thunderous detonations, the deep rumbling groans that rose up out of its far-off heart, and found a hundred echoes amongst the surrounding hills. For the rest, it was a broken surface, bearing every feature of a summer thaw frozen down again by the icy breath of winter, and adorned with a patchwork of drift snow.
Half a mile from the grey headland which was their starting point, confidence received its first check. It was Oolak who made discovery. The watchful, silent creature was unerring in his instincts, unerring in his scent of a treachery he always anticipated. He had halted his dogs, and stood in the half light, peering out this way and that at the legions of ice spectres surrounding them. Then, quite suddenly, he hailed the white man to his side, and indicated the ice on which they were standing.
"It all him move," he said, with his peculiarly significant brevity.
Steve stood for a moment without reply. He was less sensitive to indications than the Indian. In fact he failed to realize the thing the other had discovered. He shook his head.
"Guess you're——"
But his denial remained uncompleted. It was interrupted by a sharp cry from Julyman some distance away with the rear sled. The two men turned in his direction. They beheld his lean figure busy amongst his dogs, plying his club impartially, as though in an effort to quell some canine dispute.
But that was not all. As they gazed they saw the iron-shod tail of the sled rise up. It seemed to be flung up with great force. For a moment it remained poised. Then it crashed over on its side to the accompaniment of a cracking, splitting roar, like the bombardment of massed artillery.
Steve waited for nothing. Even with the roar of sub-glacial thunders hammering on his ear drums, he rushed to the man's assistance. Oolak turned to his own dogs.
The din subsided almost in a moment. Steve reached the sled where Julyman had beaten the dogs to the required condition. In a moment they were at work setting things to rights. After that the dogs were strung out afresh, and Julyman "mushed" them on, and brought them abreast of the train of the waiting Oolak.
The dogs crouched down on the rough surface of the inhospitable ice. Their great limbs were shaking under heavy coats of fur, and they whimpered plaintively, stirred by some unspeakable apprehension. The men were standing by, gazing back over the ghostly field of ice, with wonder and disquiet in their eyes.