The little adventurer was only about two years old, yet
nothing seemed novel to him, nothing daunted him. He showed neither
caution nor curiosity, wonder nor fear, but bravely trotted on as if
glaciers were playgrounds. His stout, muffled body seemed all one
skipping muscle, and it was truly wonderful to see how swiftly and to
all appearance heedlessly he flashed across nerve-trying chasms six or
eight feet wide. His courage was so unwavering that it seemed to be due
to dullness of perception, as if he were only blindly bold; and I kept
warning him to be careful. For we had been close companions on so many
wilderness trips that I had formed the habit of talking to him as if he
were a boy and understood every word.
We gained the west shore in about three hours; the width of the glacier
here being about seven miles. Then I pushed northward in order to see as
far back as possible into the fountains of the Fairweather Mountains, in
case the clouds should rise. The walking was easy along the margin of
the forest, which, of course, like that on the other side, had been
invaded and crushed by the swollen, overflowing glacier.
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