The chasms twisted with lifelike motion all around him. Behind, as in a dream, Ootah heard the whip of Koolotah, and the barking of Koolotah's dogs. For hours his feet moved swiftly and mechanically under him. Once his foot slipped. He swerved to the right. A vast black mouth yawned hungrily to receive him; then it closed behind him. The leaping team of dogs had pulled him forward. Luckily he maintained a tenacious hold to the rear upstander of his sled.
Narrow chasms constantly cut their trail. With sharp howls the dogs leaped over these, the sleds passed safely, and by instinct Ootah would bound forward. Narrower than a man's stride in width, Ootah knew these slits in the glacial ice were hundreds of feet in depth, that a slip of the foot might plunge him to immediate death. Now and then he lost his footing on the uneven ice; his heart leaped for fear, but he held grimly to the sledge and the lithe, lean but strong dog-bodies carried him to safety. These faithful animals bounded over the glimmering ice field with amazing speed. They snapped and barked with the joy of the race. In the white moonlight the vapor of their breathing enveloped them like a silvery cloud.
For hours the hunters continued the trail. Their mighty purpose fought off fatigue. The moon passed behind cumulous mountains of clouds along the horizon, and periods of darkness blotted the world from Ootah. Then they traveled in darkness. A chill dampness rising from the gaping abysses that sundered the ice field told them of their danger; then Ootah's heart chilled, his teeth were set chattering; but he thought of Annadoah and the grim need of food, and he gripped the upstander of his sled more determinedly. When the moon again unclosed its pearly sheen over the ice, the serpentine chasms moved their tortuous backs and writhed about them, the icy hummocks billowed, and the glittering ice-peaked horizon swam in a dizzy circle of diamonded light.
As their trail ascended higher the penetrating cold dampness somewhat moderated. In the taut air the sound of their whips was like that of splitting metal. Shuddering and sepulchral echoes answered the barking of their dogs. The faithful ghosts of the dogs of fallen hunters were following their departed masters in the amethystine mists of the canyons about them. Ootah and Koolotah trembled with the thought of the dreadful nearness of the dead. Believing other animals to be ahead, the dogs set up a wilder, shriller howling. Then the echoes came back with more startling and terrifying proximity. Ootah's flesh crept. Finally, with an explosive sound, Koolotah let his whip fall.
"Aulate—halt!" he called.
They came to a dead standstill.
"Pst!" he whispered. He hit the snapping, whining dogs. "Pst!" They crouched to the ground and whined mournfully.
"Dost thou hear?" Koolotah asked in a hushed voice. In the moonlight Ootah saw that the lad's face was as white as the face of the dead, and that in his eyes was a wild fear. From the mountain ridges, which loomed beyond, came an ominous noise—resembling a low wind. Ootah bent his head and listened to the sobbing monotone, then whispered:
"The breathing of the spirits of the hills who sleep."
"Perchance we waken them," Koolotah ventured.