"It's Nawadlook.
If it wasn't for my whiskers--"
His words were broken by a sudden detonation which came out of the pale
gloom ahead of them. It was like the explosion of a cannon a long
distance away.
"One of them cussed bums," he explained. "That's why they hurried on
ahead of us, Alan. _She_ says this Fourth of July celebration is going
to mean a lot for Alaska. Wonder what she means?"
"I wonder," said Alan.
CHAPTER XV
Half an hour more of the tundra and they came to what Alan had named
Ghost Kloof, a deep and jagged scar in the face of the earth, running
down from the foothills of the mountains. It was a sinister thing, and
in the depths lay abysmal darkness as they descended a rocky path worn
smooth by reindeer and caribou hoofs. At the bottom, a hundred feet
below the twilight of the plains, Alan dropped on his knees beside a
little spring that he groped for among the stones, and as he drank he
could hear the weird whispering and gurgling of water up and down the
kloof, choked and smothered in the moss of the rock walls and eternally
dripping from the crevices. Then he saw Stampede's face in the glow of
another match, and the little man's eyes were staring into the black
chasm that reached for miles up into the mountains.
"Alan, you've been up this gorge?"
"It's a favorite runway for the lynx and big brown bears that kill our
fawns," replied Alan.
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