The Captain Ordered The Indian Deck Hands To Get Out The Canoe, Take
As Many Of Us Ashore As Wished To Go, And Accompany Us To The Glacier
In Case We Should Need Their Help.
Only three of the company, in the
first place, availed themselves of this rare opportunity of meeting a
glacier
In the flesh, - Mr. Young, one of the doctors, and myself.
Paddling to the nearest and driest-looking part of the moraine flat,
we stepped ashore, but gladly wallowed back into the canoe; for the
gray mineral mud, a paste made of fine-ground mountain meal kept
unstable by the tides, at once began to take us in, swallowing us
feet foremost with becoming glacial deliberation. Our next attempt,
made nearer the middle of the valley, was successful, and we soon
found ourselves on firm gravelly ground, and made haste to the huge
ice wall, which seemed to recede as we advanced. The only difficulty
we met was a network of icy streams, at the largest of which we
halted, not willing to get wet in fording. The Indian attendant
promptly carried us over on his back. When my turn came I told him I
would ford, but he bowed his shoulders in so ludicrously persuasive a
manner I thought I would try the queer mount, the only one of the
kind I had enjoyed since boyhood days in playing leapfrog. Away
staggered my perpendicular mule over the boulders into the brawling
torrent, and in spite of top-heavy predictions to the contrary,
crossed without a fall.
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