Page:To Alaska for Gold.djvu/122

104 "It was good of them to send a man back," said the doctor, as he paused to peer down into the crevasse. "Had we not been warned we might have slipped into that without knowing it."

The trail now wound in and out among a number of small hills, and once again the party ahead was lost to sight. With the increasing cold came a stiff wind through the passes, bringing down upon their heads a veritable storm of snow, swept from the mountain tops above.

"I can readily understand how impossible it would be to make one's way through this Pass during the winter," said Dr. Barwaithe. "A regular fall of snow would mean a blizzard down here and a snowing in from which there would be no escape until spring arrived."

"And think of the cold!" said Earl. "Phew! the thermometer must go to about forty below zero!"

"It does go as low as that at times," replied his uncle. "No; travelling through this Pass during the long Alaskan winter is entirely out of the question. The man to undertake it would be a madman."

They had come to the end of the comparatively level portion of the trail, and now climbing so dangerous was at hand that little more was said. From one steep icy elevation they would crawl to the next, until several hundred feet up. Then came a turn around a cliff where the passageway was scarcely two feet wide, with a wall on one side and what appeared