Men
rested their packs on jutting stones, swapped escapes whilst they
regained their breath, then stumbled on to their toil again.
The mid-day sun beat down upon the stone "Scales." The forest had
given up the struggle, and the dizzying heat recoiled from the
unclothed rock. On either hand rose the ice-marred ribs of earth,
naked and strenuous in their nakedness. Above towered storm-beaten
Chilcoot. Up its gaunt and ragged front crawled a slender string of
men. But it was an endless string. It came out of the last fringe of
dwarfed shrub below, drew a black line across a dazzling stretch of
ice, and filed past Frona where she ate her lunch by the way. And it
went on, up the pitch of the steep, growing fainter and smaller, till
it squirmed and twisted like a column of ants and vanished over the
crest of the pass.
Even as she looked, Chilcoot was wrapped in rolling mist and whirling
cloud, and a storm of sleet and wind roared down upon the toiling
pigmies. The light was swept out of the day, and a deep gloom
prevailed; but Frona knew that somewhere up there, clinging and
climbing and immortally striving, the long line of ants still twisted
towards the sky. And she thrilled at the thought, strong with man's
ancient love of mastery, and stepped into the line which came out of
the storm behind and disappeared into the storm before.
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