These I Had To Straddle, Cutting Off The
Top As I Progressed And Hitching Gradually Ahead Like A Boy Riding A
Rail Fence.
All this time the little dog followed me bravely, never
hesitating on the brink of any crevasse that I
Had jumped, but now
that it was becoming dark and the crevasses became more troublesome,
he followed close at my heels instead of scampering far and wide,
where the ice was at all smooth, as he had in the forenoon. No land
was now in sight. The mist fell lower and darker and snow began to
fly. I could not see far enough up and down the glacier to judge how
best to work out of the bewildering labyrinth, and how hard I tried
while there was yet hope of reaching camp that night! a hope which
was fast growing dim like the sky. After dark, on such ground, to
keep from freezing, I could only jump up and down until morning on a
piece of flat ice between the crevasses, dance to the boding music
of the winds and waters, and as I was already tired and hungry I
would be in bad condition for such ice work. Many times I was put to
my mettle, but with a firm-braced nerve, all the more unflinching as
the dangers thickened, I worked out of that terrible ice-web, and
with blood fairly up Stickeen and I ran over common danger without
fatigue. Our very hardest trial was in getting across the very last
of the sliver bridges. After examining the first of the two widest
crevasses, I followed its edge half a mile or so up and down and
discovered that its narrowest spot was about eight feet wide, which
was the limit of what I was able to jump. Moreover, the side I was
on - that is, the west side - was about a foot higher than the other,
and I feared that in case I should be stopped by a still wider
impassable crevasse ahead that I would hardly be able to take back
that jump from its lower side. The ice beyond, however, as far as I
could see it, looked temptingly smooth. Therefore, after carefully
making a socket for my foot on the rounded brink, I jumped, but found
that I had nothing to spare and more than ever dreaded having to
retrace my way. Little Stickeen jumped this, however, without
apparently taking a second look at it, and we ran ahead joyfully over
smooth, level ice, hoping we were now leaving all danger behind us.
But hardly had we gone a hundred or two yards when to our dismay we
found ourselves on the very widest of all the longitudinal crevasses
we had yet encountered. It was about forty feet wide. I ran anxiously
up the side of it to northward, eagerly hoping that I could get
around its head, but my worst fears were realized when at a distance
of about a mile or less it ran into the crevasse that I had just
jumped.
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