from the evils of
his baser self.

While thinking, he had mechanically returned the pellets to the box,
closing it firmly, crushing it between his hands; and now, with a wide
sweep of his arm, he flung it far from him, into the blue-black mystery
of a ravine that swooped past the camping-ground to the valley below.

"Thank God _that's_ done with!" he muttered; though as yet the pain
rather than the elation of conquest prevailed. Then, lifting Brutus in
his arms, as though he had been a child, he slipped, dog and all, into
his sheep-skin bag, and slept without dreams.

An hour later, a sudden gust from the north swept down the ravine.
Battalions of cloud blotted out the stars; and a host of snow-flakes
whirled above the sleeping camp, like spirits of fairies, incapable of
doing harm.

The chill discomfort of snow melting on their faces woke the men, one
by one, at an unearthly hour, to find their whole world shrouded in
white, and a mist of snow-dust still falling. But Lenox, undismayed,
ordered tea and biscuits, and lost no time in setting out.

A stiff climb up the ravine into which he had flung his pill-box lay
ahead of them; but since the side nearest the camp was unbroken
glacier, it seemed wisest to hack their way across it before attempting
the ascent.

It was freezing hard: earth and sky were muffled in fine white powder,
and scudding clouds constantly hid the moon. An ice-slope overlaid
with snow is not pleasant going at the best of times; and on this one
there were ugly rents, into which men and animals slipped, to their
sore discomfort. But the way of life is by courage and persistence:
and in time the thing was done.

The farther side proved less formidable: and while they halted to
recoup their energies, a report like thunder, followed by an
unmistakable rushing sound, made every man of them catch his breath.
It was an avalanche: and its appalling crescendo was coming straight
down the hill on which they stood.

The two Pathans remained rigid, impassive,--the greater the danger the
cooler do these men become: but the Kirghiz--a creature without
self-respect--shook so violently that he dropped the bridles of his
ponies.

"Run, Sahib . . run!" he stammered. "Or we be all dead men."

But there was nowhere to run to, even had running on an ice-slope been
possible; which it was not. Neither was it possible to guess the exact
direction of the invisible annihilation that was racing down upon t