The dogs howled, the traces tightened, the sleds sped forward. They entered the defile. The trail twisted up the side of the abyss. Less than three feet wide for long stretches, the dogs had to slacken and pass upward in line, one by one. Covered with new ice it was dangerously slippery, and in climbing the men had to hold to jutting icicles for support.
Ootah was ahead. At times sheer walls of ice confronted him. At certain places there had been drifts, at others glacial fragments had slipped from the mountain above. Before these almost insuperable walls Ootah would pause and with his axe hew steps in the hard ice.
They slowly toiled ahead for an hour. Then a blank sloping ice wall, twice the height of Ootah, blocked the path. He grasped his axe and began hewing a series of ascending steps. He breathed with difficulty; the air in the high altitude made respiration difficult. He was soon bathed in perspiration. The moisture of his breath and beads of sweat froze about his face, covering him with an icy mask. His eyelashes froze together. He had to pause to melt the quickly congealing tears. He suffered unendurably. Finally his axe split; the ice was harder than his steel. He uttered an impatient exclamation.
"Thy axe!" he called to Koolotah.
Koolotah swung his axe in the air and over the dog team separating them. Ootah leaped from his feet and caught the axe as it soared above him. In a half hour the step-like trail was cut, and he clambered over the wall. Digging their nails into the indentations, the dogs followed. Then Koolotah and his team scaled the obstruction.
Koolotah felt his heart choking him as it seemed to enlarge within; Ootah, in truth, was not entirely unafraid. Both knew that a slip of the foot would plunge them to instant death. As they ascended the trail, the gathering clouds surrounded them. They could no longer see their dogs. They could not even perceive the blackness of the chasm to their right. Above and below they were enveloped in a silver mist. Only the reflected glitter of the moonlight on jutting icicles on the opposite indicated the depths so perilously near. Through the mist Koolotah saw the green and crimson eyes of baleful creatures that might, at any moment, spring upon him.
When they reached the inland valley they were both spent in strength. In sheer relief from the agonized suspense of the journey they sank on their sledges and lay palpitating for an hour or more. But the cold froze their perspiring garments and they had to rise and exercise so as not to freeze to death. Ootah knew that no time could be lost. In the interior mountains the breathing of the hill spirits was becoming more uneasy. And Ootah noted with anxiety the increasing moderation of the atmosphere. That was not well. When the cold relented the hill spirits released the glaciers.
With frantic eagerness they explored the valley. The green grass whereon Ootah had seen the splendid animals grazing months before was covered with ice. There was no sign of the ahmingmah. Ootah's heart sank. He felt very much like weeping.
Suddenly the dogs began to sniff the air and bark hungrily.
"Ahmingmah!" Koolotah cried, joyfully.