Above him, ten feet away, he could see the hole in the snow through which he knew he must have fallen; and as he thought of the fearful shoot his body would have made, clearing even the great ledge of icicles, if the surface of that bank had not been rotted by some cause, his limbs were almost paralyzed with terror. The thought helped to stir the sluggish blood in his veins, and he shrank, rather than moved, a little from the awful brink where he lay. Gradually he rose to his feet and looked about him. The Cove post-office, showing its white roof through the naked trees that looked like berry-bushes in their turn, far, far below him, fascinated him until he felt a mad impulse to leap over the icicles to oblivion. Instead of yielding to this impulse, however, he covered his eyes with his hands until he found strength to turn his back on the tiny object that terrified him. If he cried out, his voice, against the rock for a sounding-board, might awaken the sleeping postmaster before his comrades on the plateau. Even in that case no help could reach him from below across the bridgeless gorge; and even if his comrades were above him on the rocks, they could do nothing for him. [Illustration: "PHILIP COULD SEE THE HOLE IN THE SNOW THROUGH WHICH HE KNEW HE MUST HAVE FALLEN."] Should he wait there to meet certain death in the avalanche to-morrow or the nest day? He thought of the cool courage of Bromley, and wondered what he would do if he were there in his place. As long as there was a foothold to be gained, he knew Bromley would climb higher, if it were only to fall the farther, and he felt a thrill of pride in the dauntless nerve of his comrade. This thought prompted him to do something for himself, and he began by whipping his arms around his body, keeping his back resolutely on the small post-office, and trying to forget its dizzy distance below him. As he grew warmer and stronger, he felt more courage. It was impossible to reach the hole in the snow through which he had come, for the broken sides separated in the wrong way from the perpendicular. He was not a fly to crawl on a ceiling.