But Just Across The River The "Big Glacier" Was Staring
Me In The Face, Pouring Its Majestic Flood Through A Broad Mountain
Gateway And Expanding In The Spacious River Valley To A Width Of
Four Or Five Miles, While Dim In The Gray Distance Loomed Its High
Mountain Fountains.
So grand an invitation displayed in characters so
telling was of course irresistible, and body-care and weather-care
vanished.
Mr. Choquette, the keeper of the station, ferried me across the
river, and I spent the day in getting general views and planning
the work that had been long in mind. I first traced the broad,
complicated terminal moraine to its southern extremity, climbed up
the west side along the lateral moraine three or four miles, making
my way now on the glacier, now on the moraine-covered bank, and now
compelled to climb up through the timber and brush in order to pass
some rocky headland, until I reached a point commanding a good
general view of the lower end of the glacier. Heavy, blotting rain
then began to fall, and I retraced my steps, oftentimes stopping to
admire the blue ice-caves into which glad, rejoicing streams from
the mountain-side were hurrying as if going home, while the glacier
seemed to open wide its crystal gateways to welcome them.
The following morning blotting rain was still falling, but time and
work was too precious to mind it. Kind Mr. Choquette put me across
the river in a canoe, with a lot of biscuits his Indian wife had
baked for me and some dried salmon, a little sugar and tea, a
blanket, and a piece of light sheeting for shelter from rain during
the night, all rolled into one bundle.
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