"I hate the looks of it," said Phil, "but as there doesn't seem to be any other way, I suppose we've got to try it. I should say that for at least three miles it was as steep as the steepest part of a toboggan slide, though, and I'm pretty certain we sha'n't care to try it more than once."
"I guess we can do it all right," replied Serge, "but there's only one way, and that is to sit on a snow-shoe and slide. We couldn't keep on our feet a single second."
They lifted Nel-te, fur bag and all, from the sledge, tightened the lashings of its load, which included the guns and extra snow-shoes, and started it over the verge. It flashed down the declivity like a rocket, and the last they saw of it it was rolling over and over.
"Looks cheerful, doesn't it?" said Phil, firmly. "Now I'll go; then do you start the dogs down, and come yourself as quick as you please."
FOR A MOMENT THE SENSATION WAS SICKENING.
Thus saying, the plucky lad seated himself on a snow-shoe, took Nel-te, still in the fur bag, in his lap, and launched himself over the edge of the cliff. For a moment the sensation, which was that of falling from a great height, was sickening, and a thick mist seemed to obscure his vision.
Then it cleared away, and was followed by a feeling of the wildest exhilaration as he heard the whistling backward rush of air, and realized the tremendous speed at which he was whizzing through space. Ere it seemed possible that he could have gone half-way to the timber-line trees began to fly past him, and he knew that the worst was over. In another minute he was floundering in a drift of soft snow, into which he had plunged up to his neck, and the perilous feat was successfully accomplished.
Poor Serge arrived at the same point shortly afterwards, head first, and dove out of sight in the drift; but fortunately Phil was in a position to extricate him before he smothered. The dogs appeared a moment later, with somewhat less velocity, but badly demoralized, and evidently feeling that they had been sadly ill-treated by their driver. So the sledge party had safely descended in five minutes a distance equal to that which they had spent half a day and infinite toil in ascending on the other side of the mountains.
When Nel-te was released from the fur bag and set on his feet he was as calm and self-possessed as though nothing out of the usual had happened, and immediately demanded something to eat.