Working slowly, with little possible muscular exercise to warm him, he began to grow chilled and the wind-driven cold numbed his ears.

But, more than that, the wind was now a grim peril, for, from time to time, it swerved and leaped on him heavily from the side.
Once, off balance, he looked back at the dazzling slope below him.

He would be a shapeless mass of flesh long before he tumbled to the bottom.
Vaguely, as he hewed his footholds and worked his way up, he yearned for the cleverness of Harry or the wit of Joe.

What an ally either of them would be! That he was undertaking a task from which either of them would have shrunk in horror never occurred to him.

Yonder, beyond the summit, lay his destiny--Johnstown--and this was the way toward it; it was a simple thing to Bull.