It was also an apparently unequal conflict they had been drawn into, subtlety pitted against sturdiness, the elusive, foining rapier against the bushman's axe, but there are moments in all struggles when finesse does not avail, and it is by raw, unreasoning valour a man must stand or fall, while at times like these the ponderous blade is the equal of the slender streak of steel.
It was two days later when Alton, who may have made ten miles in the time, noticed something unusual on the opposite hillside.

A snowslide had come down that way, and its path was marked by willows and smaller trees.

Alton, of course, knew that the hollow they sprang from had been scored out deep by countless tons of debris and snow, and that prospector Jimmy would scarcely have passed the place.

It also seemed to him that there was a gap in the slighter band of forest which ran straight towards the snowline up the face of the hill that suggested the work of man, and his pace quickened a trifle as he pressed forward towards the river.

There he stopped for several minutes, gazing about him.
The flood came down before him stained green with the clay that underlies the glaciers, and swollen by rain and snow.