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.
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