XV

The left bank of the Midouze River was for Pic the parting of the ways

between himself and his son. All trace of the latter had vanished

absolutely and completely. He tried every known art of woodcraft but

without success. Search the river bank as he would, he could find no sign

of the missing boy. “The traitor has made use of the water to play me a

trick,” he thought, but just what the trick was, he could not determine.

“He has fled to his country in the southland,” he told the Mammoth. “If

we continue in the same direction as we have been going, we will again

find this Gonch following the straight path.”

There was nothing left to do but pursue this plan. Thus far, the

Muskman’s flight had been on a straight line to the southwest. It was

reasonable to presume that in time he would so continue. He had doubled

or side-stepped to avoid his pursuers, but he must get back to the line

in the end.

Heretofore the Mammoth’s nose or trunk-tip had guided the way, but now

that the trail was lost, the responsibility for taking the right course

devolved on Pic. It was a case of direction, and so he made use of his

knowledge of the sun’s position at rising and setting, also other signs

that good woodsmen knew for determining where they wished to go.

“I will find this man, even if I have to go to the earth’s end to do

it,” he vowed, and the way he scowled boded ill for the Muskman. He

guided the Mammoth through the Midouze region across another river, the

Adour, to a low wet region where traveling was most difficult. It was a

veritable network of brooks and rivulets with ponds, sloughs and soft

spots scattered promiscuously between. From black muck and mud, the

soil gradually changed to marl, then sand and clay as the land surface

inclined upward. This latter was seamed everywhere with tiny streams,

through which flowed the drainage from a more elevated region. The two

travelers were now ascending the slopes, leading to a mountain range

which barred their way, extending in a long line from east to west.

At sight of the mountains, Pic said to Mammoth: “The rough country lies

before us. Among the rocks and cliffs we will find where men live.”

But when he drew nearer to them, he was much taken aback and his views

underwent a decided change. The vastness of what he saw was appalling.

The steep slopes rose to tremendous heights; so high that many of the

peaks were lost to sight far above the clouds. The spaces or valleys

between them were filled with masses of snow and ice, from which torrents

of water gushed forth and down the mountain sides, bringing great

quantities of sand and clay with them. At times, great chunks of rock

or ice detached themselves from high places and came crashing down. The

ground trembled beneath their impact as though shaken by an earthquake.

To Pic, the sight and sound of all this was beyond his power of

understanding. He had lived his life in the lowlands and knew little of

mountains. It was not cold—where he and the Mammoth stood. Winter might

be near at hand, but the sun shone brightly and he could feel its warm

rays. And yet, there was ice, high above his head, and ice meant cold,

a discomfort he was unprepared for. In his hurried departure from the

Vézère Valley he had not thought to bring a hide with him as protection

from the cold. There appeared to be need of such protection if he scaled

those mountains. They were not homes of men. The southland must lie

beyond, and to reach it he must cross the mountain barrier.

A stupendous undertaking; Pic could appreciate the difficulty of such a

task, or rather he could appreciate only a fraction of the difficulty.

“Do men climb over such things or do they go around them?” he asked

himself. “Go around them,” something within him answered. He gazed to the

east; mountains in a never-ending chain as far as the eye could reach.

Westward it was the same, except that they seemed to taper off like the

tail of a gigantic beast. There was no guiding angel to watch over him

and say, “Turn west and skirt the mountain barrier; then all will be

well.” The Mammoth could not help him and Pic saw no way but to choose

the straightest, although most difficult, course. He gave a command and

Hairi marched straight ahead—to the mountains towering above him.

Up, up and never down. At times the Mammoth assumed an almost erect

position, so steep was the climb. Pic had to hold on tightly to avoid

sliding backward and off the beast’s tail. When night came he was only

too glad to stop and rest, snuggled up close to his big friend to keep

himself warm. No use of wishing that he had a bison robe to wrap around

and protect his body. When day came and the journey was resumed, he

dismounted and proceeded on foot, hoping that the exercise would drive

off the chill which made him shiver from head to foot. Both he and the

Mammoth made frequent stops, for the higher they climbed, the more

quickly they tired. The long and arduous ascent had by this time brought

them into a rarefied atmosphere—thin air—which imposed a severe test upon

their hearts and lungs.

Trees, bushes and other vegetation gave way to evergreens as they mounted

to the region of perpetual snow, and finally these were left behind them.

Snow, ice and low rugged crests alone remained.

One line of these crests, projecting from the hard-packed snow, extended

for a great distance across our travelers’ line of march. A second

similar rock backbone lay in the dim distance, running parallel with

the first. Man and elephant were crossing the intervening space, when

suddenly the Mammoth uttered a loud bellow and stopped short, his feet

bunched beneath him like four wooden posts. “The ground! It shakes!” he

squealed, much alarmed.

Pic halted, bent low and held his ear to the ground. The latter did

tremble; he felt it. He also heard a muffled rumbling roar that seemed to

originate in the bowels of the earth. He shivered, but this may have been

due as much to the cold he felt as to fear of the unknown. He could offer

no explanation of the mystery. The Mammoth was far more frightened than

he was, so he coaxed and teased the great beast, telling him there was

nothing to fear and that he must move on.

Hairi yielded after much persuasion, although he now proceeded

half-heartedly and timidly, for the trembling ground inspired him with

great dread. He was soon treated to another unpleasant surprise. The

space between the two lines of crests was a waste of hard-packed snow

which became broken up into hummocks and ice-blocks as the two advanced.

Again Hairi stopped and stood shaking like a leaf as he caught sight of

a long deep rent in the snow-plain. It emitted a deep, booming roar—a

thousand Cave Lion voices rolled into one.

This was too much for the Mammoth’s overbalanced nerves. He stopped and

refused to budge. He would stand there until he starved and the hyenas

could come and polish his bones, but he would never go near that hole

which growled so strangely. Pic advanced to the rent in the snow-plain.

It widened and deepened as he approached. He saw a gleam of ice beneath

the snow—no rock, nothing but ice. The roaring grew louder. Pic kept on,

although almost overwhelmed by the timidity that even brave men feel when

confronted by dangers they do not understand. A few more steps and he

stood upon the brink of the rent. He sank to his knees, dizzy and scared

almost out of his wits. Down, down, down descended the cold ice-walls to

some unknown depth beyond the range of human vision, where the roar of

rushing water echoed and re-echoed until it boomed like thunder.

Pic began to comprehend. The snow-plain was an ice-field of tremendous

depth; the rent was a crack in the ice; and the booming noise came from

the water which flowed through the bottom of the crack. These things

could be seen by any one who dared stand on the brink of the rent and

look at them, but although Pic had a clear head when moving about cliffs

and high places, the vast depth and cold emptiness made him so giddy he

could scarcely stand.

The ice-rent or crevasse was thousands of feet deep, an indication of the

ice-field’s depth. The two lines of crests were in reality the tops of

lofty mountain chains, their intervening space filled almost to the top

with slowly moving ice; a glacier with a torrent of water flowing through

its base.

[Illustration: “HE SANK TO HIS KNEES, DIZZY AND SCARED”]

Pic returned to the Mammoth and explained matters as best he could.

There was a deep crack in the ice and the water running through it made

much disturbance and noise. He would not ask his friend to jump over the

crack; it was too wide for that; nor would he ask him to go near it. All

that Hairi need do was to follow. Pic would lead him around it and to a

place of safety.

The Mammoth appeared much relieved and consented to move on. Pic led him

on a line parallel to the crevasse until the latter ended in a pile of

shattered ice-blocks. Here the glacier’s surface was much broken and the

two friends were obliged to watch their steps carefully on the slippery

ice to avoid bad tumbles. In one place the surface inclined to form a

chute or narrow slide, and Hairi in particular had a slow, hard time of

it reaching the bottom. He and Pic were so busy finding their way around

the end of the crevasse that they had neither eyes nor ears for that

which followed in their wake. It was a shaggy-haired animal with nose

held closely to the ground and following the same route over which Pic

and the Mammoth had just traveled. Where the path turned at right angles,

the newcomer looked up and saw the crevasse yawning in front of him. The

sight threw him into a panic. Away he tore like mad along the ice-cliff

squealing, “Oowee, oowee!” at the top of his lungs. Once he slipped and

fell terribly near the dreadful gulf. He rose trembling with fear. His

vocal cords became paralyzed and he could not utter a sound. He staggered

toward the ice-hummocks near the end of the crevasse, foam-flecked and

steaming with the dew of death. The ground suddenly fell away in front of

him and he began to slide. Too late; he uttered a last despairing squeak,

then resigned himself to the inevitable, and with eyes tightly shut, went

skidding rapidly on his downward flight to the unknown horrors awaiting

him.