She stood for an interminable moment, waiting, listening, numbed, body and mind. Then she was conscious that Mose was going, and she went after him a few steps, calling his name. But his receding shape drifted faster and faster, a fading shadow in the mist. She turned back, lifting her voice in a great cry to Philip. And she was answered from the abyss. She dropped to her knees and crept close to look down. Stratton was there, where the pale, green walls narrowed. He rested wedgelike, caught at the armpits. He looked up and saw her. "Be careful," he said, "I am all right." Instantly the executive in her rose. "I have the lariat," she said. "Fasten it to the ice where Mose stood," he called. "I can work along that far." He remembered that the rope was new and strong, one he himself had selected as a reserve in picketing his own spirited horse. The question was whether the ice would take his weight. He worked carefully, laboriously along by shoulder and elbow, his body swinging from the waist, starting a rain of ice at every move. At last, where the wall crumbled, leaving a ledge, he was able to draw himself to his knees. He cut foothold with his knife, and other niches higher up for his hands, and pulled himself erect on the slippery shelf. Beyond him the chasm widened between sheer walls, and it was in this shaft that the lowered rope hung. It swung for a moment, like a failing pendulum, and each oscillation, though he stood alert, missed his reach a little more. The girl, peering into the abyss, understood, and again disappeared. The line was drawn up, and presently it dropped almost at his shoulder. He caught the end and, looking up, met her eyes over the rim. "That’s better," he said. "Wait—one moment," she called and was gone once more. She did not return this time, but her voice came to him, "Now, now, all ready." The lariat tightened. It creaked, ground on the edge of the chasm; ice chips fell ceaselessly. He swung out. He was a big fellow, heavy. Would the support hold? Would Mose, his fury cooled, be neutral? Why, yes, surely the boy was even setting himself to ease the strain. He could feel an unmistakable give and pull above on the rope, as he climbed, hand over hand. He gained the top. He reached a palm around a slight pinnacle, for a final grasp on the line, and pulled himself slowly out on the surface of the glacier. He was a strong man, physically, a man of steady nerve, one accustomed to take risks with Nature, as in those times a man of the Northwest must, but what he saw, in that brief pause, sent a shiver through him. He closed his eyes like one brought suddenly into intense light.