He sprang to his feet as if to leap into that white waste of seething ice foam.  ’Twas the frenzy of terror, which oft seizes men adrift on ice.  In another moment he would have swamped us under the pitching crest of a mountain sea.  But M. Radisson turned.  One blow of his pole and the foolish youth fell senseless to the bottom of the canoe.

“Look, sir, look!” screamed La Chesnaye, “the canoe’s getting ice-logged!  She’s sunk to the gun’ales!”

But at the moment when M. Radisson turned to save young Gillam, the unguided canoe had darted between two rolling seas.  Walls of ice rose on either side.  A white whirl—­a mighty rush—­a tumult of roaring waters—­the ice walls pitched down—­the canoe was caught—­tossed up—­nipped—­crushed like a card-box—­and we four flung on the drenching ice-pans to a roll of the seas like to sweep us under, with a footing slippery as glass.

“Keep hold of Gillam!  Lock hands!” came a clarion voice through the storm.  “Don’t fear, men!  There is no danger!  The gale will drive us ashore!  Don’t fear!  Hold tight!  Hold tight!  There’s no danger if you have no fear!”

The ice heaved and flung to the roll of the drift.

“Hold fast and your wet sleeves will freeze you to the ice!  Steady!” he called, as the thing fell and rose again.

Then, with the hiss of the world serpent that pursues man to his doom, we were scudding before a mountain swell.  There was the splintering report of a cannon-shot.  The ice split.  We clung the closer.  The rush of waves swept under us, around us, above us.  There came a crash.  The thing gave from below.  The powers of darkness seemed to close over us, the jaws of the world serpent shut upon their prey, the spirit of evil shrieked its triumph.

Our feet touched bottom.  The waves fell back, and we were ashore on the sand-bar of the traverse.

“Run!  Run for your lives!” shouted Radisson.  Jerking up Gillam, whom the shock had brought to his senses.  “Lock hands and run!”

And run we did, like those spirits in the twilight of the lost, with never a hope of rescue and never a respite from fear, hand gripping hand, the tide and the gale and the driving sleet yelping wolfishly at our heels!  Twas the old, old story of Man leaping undaunted as a warrior to conquer his foes—­turned back!—­beaten!—­pursued by serpent and wolf, spirit of darkness and power of destruction, with the light of life flickering low and the endless frosts creeping close to a heart beating faint!

Oh, those were giants that we set forth to conquer in that harsh northland—­the giants of the warring elements!  And giants were needed for the task.

Think you of that when you hear the slighting scorn of the rough pioneer, because he minceth not his speech, nor weareth ruffs at his wrists, nor bendeth so low at the knee as your Old-World hero!

The earth fell away from our feet.  We all four tumbled forward.  The storm whistled past overhead.  And we lay at the bottom of a cliff that seemed to shelter a multitude of shadowy forms.  We had fallen to a ravine where the vast caribou herds had wandered from the storm.