Added to this was another difficulty.  As he wound slowly, about midday, up the last reach, with the summit just above him, the wind carried masses of cloud over the crest and into his face.  He walked alternately in a bewildering, driving fog and then in an air made crazy with electricity.  Again and again, from one side or the other, he started when the storm boomed and cannonaded down a ravine and then belched out into the open.  All this time the babel of the winds overhead never ceased, and the force of the storm cut up under him with such violence that he was almost raised from the earth.

Then an unexpected barrier obtruded—­a literal mountain of ice was before him.  The snow of the recent fall had been whipped away, and the surface of the mountain, here perilously steep, was now sleek and solid with ice.  Bull looked gloomily toward the summit so close above him, and the ice glimmered in the dull light.  There was only one way to make even the attempt.  He sat down, took off his snowshoes, strapped them to his back, and began to work his way up the slope, battering out each foothold with the head of his ax.  It was possible to ascend in this manner, but it would be practically impossible to descend.

Once committed to this way, he had either to go on to the summit, or else perish.  Working slowly, with little possible muscular exercise to warm him, he began to grow chilled and the wind-driven cold numbed his ears.  But, more than that, the wind was now a grim peril, for, from time to time, it swerved and leaped on him heavily from the side.  Once, off balance, he looked back at the dazzling slope below him.  He would be a shapeless mass of flesh long before he tumbled to the bottom.

Vaguely, as he hewed his footholds and worked his way up, he yearned for the cleverness of Harry or the wit of Joe.  What an ally either of them would be!  That he was undertaking a task from which either of them would have shrunk in horror never occurred to him.  Yonder, beyond the summit, lay his destiny—­Johnstown—­and this was the way toward it; it was a simple thing to Bull.  He could no more vary from his course than a magnetic needle can vary from its pole.

Suddenly he came on a break in the solid face of the ice.  Above him was a narrow rift through the ice to the gravel beneath; how it was made, Bull could not guess.  But he took advantage of it.  Presently he was striding on toward the summit, beating his hands to restore the circulation and gingerly rubbing his ears.

There was a magical change as he reached the summit and sat down behind some rocks to regain his breath and quiet his shaken nerves.  The clouds split apart in the zenith; the sun burst through; on both sides the broad mountain billowed away to white lowlands; the air was alive with little, brilliant spots of electricity.

It cheered Bull Hunter vastly.  The gale, which was tumbling the clouds down the arch of the sky and toward the east, was more mighty than ever, but he put his head down to it confidently and began the descent.