on the glistening slope. He heard the deafening echoing explosions of
splitting ice in the distance . . . With fierce ferocity he
instinctively fastened one bleeding hand to an icy projection above
him, with the other he held with grimly desperate determination to the
sled . . . In the next dizzy instant he felt the icy floor beneath him
lurch itself forward and downward . . . before his very eyes he saw
Koolotah and his team--not twenty feet below--wiped from existence by
the descending glacier to which he clung and in the hollow crevice of
which he found security . . . In a second's space he caught a clear
vision of tremendous masses of green and purple glaciers being ground
to fine powder in their swift descent on all sides of him, . . . he
saw the feathery ice fragments catch fire in the moonlight, . . . he
heard the elemental roar and grinding crash of ice mountains sundering
in a titanic convulsion . . . then he lost hearing . . . In that same
sick bewildering moment of preternatural consciousness he thought
wildly of Annadoah . . . he saw her appealing wan face amid the blur of
white moonlight . . . he knew she needed food . . . and he felt an ache
at his heart . . . he called upon the spirits of his ancestors. Then
the silvery swimming world of white dust-driven fire became suddenly
black--and the earth seemed removed from under him.
In the village the natives were awakened from their lethargic sleep by
the far-away crash of the avalanche. Their faces blanched as they
thought of the hunters. "The hill spirits have smitten! _Ioh_!
_Ioh_!" they moaned. In her igloo Annadoah, who had waited with
sleepless anxiety, wept alone. Of all in the village only the heart of
one, Maisanguaq, was glad.
VII
"_The utter tragedy of her devotion to the man who had deserted her,
and the utter hopelessness of his own deep passion, blightingly,
horribly forced itself upon him . . . Ootah asked himself all the
questions men ask in such a crisis . . . and he demanded with wild
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