At last, as the trees began to thin, they came to a point where the valley split and a great cañon turned north towards the range. Travel now became rougher, for the broad level flats gave way to snow-covered rapids and big drifts. As they advanced up the gorge a glacier was seen winding down from the centre of the mountains. One night Mr. Belmore Browne had an accident which might have proved serious. He went out to shoot an owl for food, and as the ejector of his little rifle had been removed the cartridge came back on his eye and just missed his right eyeball. It gave him an eerie feeling to see the friendly dogs lapping up the bloodstained snow. Shortly after he made a reconnaissance of twenty-five miles ahead, and found the glacier they had seen from afar off running like a great white road into the hills. The route seemed possible, but there were ugly ice precipices at the head which suggested that the crossing of the pass might not be easy.
A second reconnaissance took him to the head of the glacier. At first no crossing could be discerned, but suddenly at the head of the right-hand basin the mountains broke away and he saw a smooth snow-field leading to the crest. He climbed to the top of it, and at first saw nothing but a sheer precipice. At length, however, he discovered on the right a gentle snow slope leading down into a great snow cup, and realized that the pass could be crossed.
On 3rd April the main camp was pushed up to a height of 6,000 feet. Then came a delay from a blizzard, which confined the explorers for twenty-four hours to their tents. It was bitterly cold, and everything, including the alarm clock, froze stiff. They managed, however, to get a little fire with an empty pemmican case, and, with the stove, had a sort of party in the tent--men, dogs, and everything. The party was, however, unceremoniously broken up by one of the dogs backing into the stove, and filling the tent with a cloud of smoke from singed hair.
Next morning they crossed the divide, partly shooting and partly lowering their belongings over the 1,000-feet drop into the hollow. They were no sooner across when another blizzard arrived, and they were storm-bound for thirty-six hours. But their spirits were high. For the time they were done with uphill climbs, and they saw that by crossing a low pass at the head of another glacier they could reach the great Muldrow Glacier, which had been known to the world since 1902. This glacier would take them into the very heart of the mountain.