y, jumping
from berg to berg, the man encouraging the woman to fresh
endeavour, until at last they gained the southern bank.
Had they slipped or overbalanced themselves it would have
been good-bye to this world. Pasmore and Douglas had to
assist Dorothy up the steep banks, so great had been the
strain and so great was the reaction. Nor was it to be
wondered at, for it would have tried the nerves of most
men. They turned when they had reached a point of vantage
and looked around. An awe-inspiring but magnificent sight
met their gaze.

Coming down the river like a great tidal wave they could
see a chaotic front of blue water and glistening bergs
advancing swiftly and surely. At its approach the huge
slabs of ice in the river were forced upwards, and shivered
into all manner of fanciful shapes. It was the dammed-up
current of the mighty river which at length had forced
the barrier of ice, and carried all in front of it, as
the mortar carries the shell. There was one continuous,
deafening roar, punctuated with a series of violent
explosions as huge blocks of ice were shivered and shot
into the air by that Titanic force. Nothing on earth
could live in that wild maelstrom. It was one vast,
pulsating, churning mass, and as the sun caught its
irregular, crystal-like crest, a lawn-like mist, that
glowed with every colour of the rainbow, hovered over
it. It was indeed a wondrously beautiful, but awe-inspiring
spectacle.

But the most terrible feature of the scene was the human
life that was about to be sacrificed in that fierce flood.
The murderous members of Big Bear's band who had followed
them up, led away against their better judgment by the
sight of their human prey, had advanced farther over the
ice than they imagined, so that, when checked by the
deliberate and careful shooting of Rory and Child-of-Light,
they remained where they were instead of either rushing
on or beating a precipitate retreat. Thus thirty of them
realised that they were caught as in a trap. They saw
the towering bulk of that pitiless wave coming swiftly
towards them, and then they ran, panic-stricken, some
this way and some that. They ran as only men run when
fleeing for their lives.

"It is too horrible!" cried the girl, turning away from
the gruesomeness of the spectacle.

The Indians had flung their rifles from them and were
scattering in all directions over the ice, but that
gleaming wave, that Juggernaut of grinding bergs, was
swifter