She seemed to be walking in mid-air, cut off from the comfortable security of the solid earth below, and she found the clamor of falling water that came faintly up to her vaguely reassuring.

There had been an almost appalling silence where she had left her companions beneath the frozen peaks, but now one could hear the hoarse fret of a rapid on the river, and this was a familiar sound that she welcomed.
Still her weariness gained on her, and her limbs grew heavier, until she could scarcely drag herself along.

Weston's limp became more perceptible too, but he went on with an almost cruel persistency, and forced her forward with his hand on her arm.

Sometimes he spoke to her, and, though his voice was strained, his words were cheering and compassionate.
At length, the descent they skirted became less steep, and scrambling down over a broken slope they presently reached the timber--straggling juniper, and little scattered firs that by and by grew taller and closer together; and, though the peril was over, it was then that their real difficulties commenced.

The slope was so steep that they could scarcely keep a footing, and now and then they fell into the trees.