"Yes, I've been a ship's painter."
"Okay. First, take off your skis and put on your crampons. Then tie all the skis and poles together to make a deadman, and dig a trench at least a metre deep. Tie the line around the middle of your bundle and bury it ..."
Singer raced to carry out instructions. He got the shovel, tied up the bundle, and in less than half an hour was lowering himself down the crevasse by the climbing-rope, whose other end was belayed by the deadman.
As the crevasse averaged only a metre wide, he found that by bracing his back against one side and digging the spikes of the crampons on his feet into the other, he hardly needed the rope. The inside of a glacier was the strangest place he had ever been in.
Sunlight came through the ice as a diffused blue glow.
Water dripped somewhere, plink-plink, and from deep-in the ice same cracking and groaning sounds.
Fifteen metres from the surface he found Okagamut, wedged head downward where the walls shelved together. Bracing his feet, Singer began chipping away with his knife.
"Watch out," said Okagamut. "You don't want to drop me down the rest of the way."
Singer kept on, expecting any minute to hear the whoops of the pursuers. Finally he worked the end of the rope around his companion's torso, tied it securely, and inched his way back up to the surface. Despite the cold, he was soaked with sweat.
The specks on the horizon were bigger.
He heaved on the rope. No good. Heave. No good.
He looked around frantically. The fsyokn! While they obeyed him none too well, beggars couldn't be choosers, as that bloke Cicero said. He tied the end of the rope to the sledge-trace and, with difficulty, hitched up the team.
"Kshay!" The animals strained at their traces, with no result.
Again, with a crack of the whip. No good. The specks were visibly growing, weren't they?
Again. And again. He used the whip, and with his other hand hauled on the rope himself.
The tension suddenly lessened. Up came Okagamut, until he flopped over the lip of the hole and scrambled to his feet. The fsyokn, not having been told to stop pulling, jerked him flat on his face and began dragging him at a run until Singer's shrieks stopped them.
Okagamut felt his right arm, saying: "No bones broken, I think, but my arm's asleep from having the circulation cut off. Serves me right for running around a glacier without skis—hey, aren't those our friends from Vyutr?"
"Right-o."
"Why didn't you tell me? Get the gear stowed, quick!"
"I thought you had enough to worry about, battler," said Singer, pulling up tent-stakes.
The approaching party could now be made out. The howls of their fsyokn came across the snow. The two men, the smaller hampered by his paralysed arm, rushed about stowing their gear.
"They've got us this time, that's no furphy," said Singer.
"Not necessarily. Here, catch this. Put that there. Tie down this corner. Get your skis back on."
"Still think we can escape?"
"Once we get going, I know it. Got everything? Kshay?"
Off they went. Okagamut's arm had come to life again. They jogged beside the sled at a dog-trot. Yells, whip-cracks, and howls came from the pursuers.
On the Earthmen went, neither gaining nor losing, all morning and part of the afternoon. When they got too exhausted with trotting, they hopped on the sled long enough to catch their breath.
"What's happened back there?" said Singer.
"One of their fsyokn has dropped dead, and they're cutting him loose."
"We'd better slow up a bit, lest ours do the same."
After a few minutes at an easier pace, Singer's head stopped spinning and the pounding of his heart abated. Then he said: "Oh!"
"What?"
"Look at that slope!"
"That leads to the plateau. If we can make it we'll have fairly easy going the rest of the way."
As the exhausted animals could not drag the sled up the grade, the men put their shoulders to the rear of the load. Up they went, a step at a time.
The noise neared. Something went fwht! "Shooting at us again," panted Okagamut.
The next, thought Singer, would hit right between his shoulder-blades.
Fwh-tunk! The arrow struck the load on the sled. Singer hoped it hadn't punctured their kettle.
Fwht!
"One more heave," gritted Okagamut, "and we'll be out of—uh! They got me!"
Singer, heedless of the archers, seized his companion. "Where?"
"Here!" Okagamut showed the feathered tail of the bolt sticking out of his coat. "Hey, wait!" He pulled the missile out. No blood. "They didn't get me after all; that fur-lined vest Dyenük sold me must have stopped it!"
They struggled to the top of the slope, missiles scattering more and more widely as the bowmen, in a last effort, shot at higher and higher angles.
At the top they paused for breath, out of range. Singer cried: "They're turning back!"
"I thought they would," said Okagamut.
After a moment of silence, Singer said: "Let's take a spell for a pot of billy and a smoke-o."
"Okay."
"You know, cobber, I had a deny on you back there at the hut on account of what happened. But now "I sees it was my fault. You're a dinkum bloke and a credit to your jolly species, and I'm sorry for the way I acted. Will you shike on it?"
"I'll shike," said Okagamut with a grin.
"By the way, how'd you know they'd turn back if you kept ahead of 'em long enough?"
"Hadn't you guessed? It's a matter of logic. For one thing I'm an Eskimo, brought up on conditions like this. I was born in Kotzebue Sound, and I teach at the University of Alaska.
"I knew that to keep up your strength on the trail you need a high-calorie diet which means a high meat-content. Being vegetarians the Kangandites couldn't do that. They either had to pack such a load of plant foods to get the necessary calories and oil to cook it that their beasts couldn't haul it, or else they'd find themselves running out of grub before they even reached the plateau. Which—" (he jerked his thumb towards the Kangandites, now small specks again) "is just what happened!"