Here and there it leaned outward threateningly, bulging from the terrific weight behind; at other points the muddy flood recoiled from vast heaps which had slid downward and half dammed its current. Back of these piles the fresh cleavage showed dazzlingly. On, upward, back into the untracked mountains it ran through mile upon mile of undulations, until at last it joined the ice-cap which weighted the plateau. As far as the eye could follow the river ahead it stood solidly. Across its entire face it was dripping; a thousand little rills and waterfalls ate into it, and over it swept a cool, dank breath. The effect of the first view was overwhelming. Nothing upon the earth compares in majesty and menace to these dull-eyed monsters of bygone ages; nothing save the roots of mountains can serve to check them; nothing less than the ceaseless energy of mighty rivers can sweep away their shattered fragments. Murray O'Neil had seen Jackson Glacier many times, but always he experienced the same feeling of awe, of personal insignificance, as when he first came stumbling up that gorge more than a year before. For a long time the girls stood gazing without a word. They seemed to have forgotten his presence. "Well?" he said at last. "Isn't it BIG?" Natalie faltered, with round eyes. "Will it fall over on us?" He shook his head. "The river is too wide for that, but when a particularly big mass drops it makes waves large enough to sweep everything before them. This bank on our right is sixty feet high, but I've seen it inundated." Turning to Eliza, he inquired: "What do you think of it?" Her face as she met his was strangely glorified, her eyes were shining, her fingers tightly interlocked. "I--I'd like to cry or--or swear," she said, uncertainly, "Why, Eliza!" Natalie regarded her friend in shocked amazement, but Murray laughed. "It affects people differently," he said. "I have men who refuse to make this trip. There's something about Jackson that frightens them--perhaps it is its nearness. You see, there's no other place on the globe where we pygmies dare come so close to a live glacier of this size." "How can we go on?" Natalie asked. "We must work our boats along this bank. If the ice begins to crack anywhere near us I want you both to scamper up into the alders as fast as your rubber boots will carry you." "What will you do?" Eliza eyed him curiously. "Oh, I'll follow; never fear! If it's not too bad, I'll stay with the boats, of course. But we're not likely to have much difficulty at this season." Eliza noted the intensity with which the boatmen were scanning the passage ahead, and something in O'Neil's tone told her he was speaking with an assurance he did not wholly feel. "You have lost some men here, haven't you?" she asked. "Yes. But the greater danger is in coming down. Then we have to get out in the current and take our chances."