Fortune has her cycles, whether for good or ill. The Kansas, having

run the gauntlet of many dangers, seemed to have earned an approving

smile from the fickle goddess. A slight but perceptible veering of the

wind, combined with the increasing power of the sun's rays, swept the

ocean clear of its storm-wraiths. Soon after passing the pillar rock,

Courtenay thought he could make out the unwavering outline of

mountainous land amid the gray mists. A few minutes later the waves

racing alongside changed their leaden hue to a steely glitter which

told him the fog was dispersing. The nearer blue of the ocean carpet

spread an ever-widening circle until it merged into a vivid green.

Then, with startling suddenness, the curtain was drawn aside on a

panorama at once magnificent and amazing.

Almost without warning, the ship was found to be entering the estuary

of a narrow fiord. Gaunt headlands, carved on Titanic scale out of the

solid rock, guarded the entrance, and already shut out the more distant

coast-line. Behind these first massive walls, everywhere unscalable,

and rising in separate promontories to altitudes of, perhaps, four

hundred feet, an inner fortification of precipitous mountains flung

their glacier-clad peaks heavenward to immense heights,--heights which,

in that region, soared far above the snow-line. The sun was reflected

with dazzling brilliancy from their icy summits, and wonderful lights

sparkled in rainbow tints on their slopes. Delicate pink deepened to

rose crimson; pale greens softened into the beryl blue of stupendous

glaciers, vast frozen cataracts which flowed down deep and broad clefts

almost to the water's edge.

Above these color-bands, the dead-white mantle of everlasting snow

spread its folds, with here and there a black ridge of granite

thrusting wind-cleared fangs high above the far-flung shroud. But, if

the crests of peak upon peak were thus clothed in white, their bases

wore a garment of different texture. Save on the seaward terraces of

stark rock, with their tide-marked base of weed-covered boulders, the

densest vegetation known to mankind imposed everywhere a first barrier

to human progress far more unconquerable than the awesome regions

beyond. Pine forests of extraordinary density crammed each available

yard of space, until the tree-growth yielded perforce to hardier Alpine

moss and lichens.

This lower belt of deepest green ranged from five

hundred to one thousand feet in height, as conditions were adverse or

favorable; waterfalls abounded; each tiny glen held its foaming

rivulet, rushing madly down the steep, or leaping in fine cascades from

one rocky escarpment to another. Courtenay, after an astounded glance

at the magnitude and solemn grandeur of the spectacle, had eyes for

naught save the conformation of the channel. The change in the wind

was caused, he found, by the northerly headland thrusting its giant

mass a mile, or more, westward of its twin; but he quickly discovered,

from the conformation of the land, that the latter was really the

protecting cape of the inner water-way. He reasoned, therefore, that

the deep-water channel flowed close to the northern shore until it was

flung off by the relentless rocks to seek the easier inlet behind the

opposite point.




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