"Now for it!" cried Phil, cheerfully, as they emerged from the scanty timber, and shivered in the chill blast that swept down from the towering peaks above them. Between two of these was a saddlelike depression that they took to be the pass, and to it the young leader determined to guide his little party.
"Up you go, Musky!" he shouted. "Pull, Luvtuk, my pigeon! Amook, you old rascal, show what you are good for! A little more work, a little more hunger, and then rest, with plenty to eat. So stir yourselves and climb!"
With this the long whip-lash whistled through the frosty air, and cracked with a resounding report that would have done credit to the most expert of Eskimo drivers, for our Phil was no longer a novice in its use, and with a yelp the dogs sprang forward.
Up, up, up they climbed, until, as Phil remarked, it didn't seem as though the top of the world could be very far away. The sun rose, and flooded the snow-fields with such dazzling radiance that but for their protecting goggles our travellers must have been completely blinded by the glare. The deep gulch whose windings they followed held in summer-time a roaring torrent, but now it was filled with solidly packed snow from twenty-five to one hundred feet deep.
As they advanced the gulch grew more and more shallow, until at length it was merged in a broad uniform slope so steep and slippery that they were obliged to cut footholds in the snow, and at frequent intervals carve out little benches two feet wide. From one of these to another they dragged the sledges, one at a time, with rawhide ropes. Even the dogs had to be assisted up the glassy incline, on which they could gain no hold. So arduous was this labor that three hours were spent in overcoming the last five hundred feet of the ascent. Thus it was long past noon when, breathless and exhausted, the party reached the summit, or rather a slope so gentle that the dogs could once more drag the sledges.
Here, at an elevation of nearly five thousand feet above the sea, they paused for breath, for a bite of lunch, and for a last look over the way they had come. From this elevation their view embraced a sweep of over one hundred miles of mountain and plain, river and forest. It was so far-reaching and boundless that it even seemed as if they could take in the whole vast Yukon Valley, and locate points that common-sense told them were a thousand miles beyond their range of vision. Grand as was the prospect, they did not care to look at it long. Time was precious; the air, in spite of its sunlight, was bitterly chill, and, after all, the mighty wilderness now behind them held too many memories of hardship, suffering, and danger to render it attractive.
So, "Hurrah for the coast!" cried Phil.
"Hurrah for Sitka!" echoed Serge.
"Hooray for salt water! Now, bullies, up and at 'em!" roared Jalap Coombs, expressing a sentiment, and an order to his sailor-bred dogs, in a breath.
In a few moments more the wonderful view had disappeared, and the sledges were threading their way amid a chaos of gigantic bowlders and snow-covered landslides from the peaks that rose on both sides. There was no sharp descent from the summit, such as they had hoped to find, but instead a lofty plateau piled thick with obstructions. About them no green thing was to be seen, no sign of life; only snow, ice, and precipitous cliffs of bare rock. The all-pervading and absolute silence was awful. There was no trail that might be followed, for the hardiest of natives dared not attempt that crossing in the winter. Even if they had, their trail would have been obliterated almost as soon as made by the fierce storms of these altitudes. So their only guide was that of general direction, which they knew to be south, and to this course Phil endeavored to hold.