at no less than the
summer of lower latitudes.

It was a moment for panic. But Steve resisted with all his might.

The position was supremely critical. There were no means of retreat in
face of that amazing fissure. There could be no standing still. They
must go on with the dread tide of grinding ice, on and on to the end.
And for the end their trust must be in the gods of fortune for such
mercies as they chose to vouchsafe.

Steve's order rang out amidst the booming of the ice. It was urgent. It
was fierce in the need of the moment. The Indians knew. He had no need
to explain. Before them lay the hideous downward slope with possible
hell at the bottom. And the demon of avalanche was hard upon their
heels.

In a frenzy the dogs leapt at their work. There was no need for club or
urging. They were only too eager to quit the quaking ice and lose their
consciousness of the thunders of the under-world in a rush of vital
movement.

Steve warned himself there remained a fighting chance. It was the man's
courage which inspired the thought. The dogs took the only chance they
knew. They at least understood the soullessness of Nature's might when
arrayed for destruction.

Steve drove for the fringe of it all, where the ice lapped against the
rising walls of the valley to which they were dropping. It was his only
course. He felt it to be his only chance. He had no real hope. It was
instinctive decision unsupported by reason. He knew that ahead lay the
great valley obscured under a fog of mist, and he could only guess at
the perils that lay hidden there.

No, he did not know. He had no desire to question. Instinct alone could
serve him now, and instinct urged him to flee from the middle course of
the glacier as he would flee from the breath of pestilence.

From the first moments of blind rush for safety all sense of time became
utterly lost. So, too, with fatigue. So, too, with the matter of
distance. Labour became well-nigh superhuman amidst the moving ice
hummocks. And the speed, and the jolting, and pitching of the sleds
transformed the chaotic world about them into still more utter
confusion.

The sweaty mist came up from below seeking to enshroud them in long,
gauzy tentacles.

How long the struggle endured it would have been impossible to tell.
There was thought only for the fissures that opened with a roar at their
feet, for the ice driving down upon their heels, for the melting streams
coursing amongst the humm