"Travels in Alaska 



down. I traced them with firm nerve developed by 

 the danger, making wide jumps, poising cautiously on 

 dizzy edges after cutting footholds, taking wide cre- 

 vasses at a grand leap at once frightful and inspiring. 

 Many a mile was thus traveled, mostly up and down 

 the glacier, making but little real headway, running 

 much of the time as the danger of having to pass the 

 night on the ice became more and more imminent. 

 This I could do, though with the weather and my 

 rain-soaked condition it would be trying at best. In 

 treading the mazes of this crevassed section I had 

 frequently to cross bridges that were only knife-edges 

 for twenty or thirty feet, cutting off the sharp tops 

 and leaving them flat so that little Stickeen could 

 follow me. 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 be- 

 wildering 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 



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