Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

He found a trail where there was no trail, carrying them through a muskeg slough, and then up the steep hill they had climbed two days ago, but this time by a more tortuous route, hidden behind a ridge. He located a ledge where the marshal could not see; a ledge about opposite the promontory and made camp. He’d brought binoculars this time. He set up a little screen of stones and shale on the crest of the ridge and sprawled out comfortably to watch Grizzly Bill’s shelf.

It was clear that their visit had the giant worried. He moved restlessly around the neighborhood of the cabin all the rest of the day. From time to time he’d sweep the promontory and the front trail with his ’scope. A half dozen times, he walked down to the edge of the glacier and stood there staring.

The marshal watched the proceedings sourly. He growled, “He’s not going to risk going out into that crevasse field in this weather. And if he does, what about it? If those crevasses are opening and closing, how are we going to find the right one, except for luck, even if we see him visit it from here?”

“There you go again,” Cluny grunted without offense. “It’s just on account of you don’t know grizzlies, marshal.”

The marshal fumed. He fumed harder when nothing of consequence happened by sundown. One thing he was sure of, Grizzly wouldn’t risk that glacier in the dark!

Grizzly Bill was down at the edge, though, not long after daylight. He scanned the slopes on their side of the glacier half a dozen times. Finally, he went back to his cabin and came out wearing a winter parka. He carried a rope and climber’s pick. He sprawled out by the edge of the ice bridge and scarcely moved to mid-morning.

Suddenly, he straightened, cutting some sign Tim Cluny could not catch from where he was. He jumped his enormous body erect with amazing spryness. A moment later he was hustling across the icebridge with his rope and pick. He passed through some low-pressure ridges, indistinguishable to the marshal, except that he kept appearing and disappearing against the field of gleaming white.

Finally he appeared very clearly and stopped and dropped his rope and hunkered at a particular spot. The marshal’s heart began to beat with the hard rhythm of excitement every law dog feels when a difficult chase shows signs of closing. But Grizzly did nothing after that. He just hunkered there like a man at a fishole in the ice.

Cluny said, “Guess we can go back now, marshal.”

Waring stared at him. “Nothing’s happened!”

“Oh, something will happen by the time we get there,” Cluny grunted, with firm assurance, “Grizzly’s a pretty good man in the bush. He knows that glacier. But nothing this side of hell would get me out there!”

With his leg muscles and back feeling like he’d been wracked, the marshal followed Cluny down to the highway. He was convinced that leaving their vantage point was a big mistake. Grizzly might be up to nothing more suspicious than chopping a chunk of the particularly hard blue ice the sourdoughs rated so highly in this weather. If Grizzly was up to something grimmer, they might lose the evidence they could have gotten with the marshal’s telescopic camera. But Cluny apparently had something in his mind, and this being wilderness bush, it was really his show.

They drove back up the road to the other trail, and made the stiff climb back to Grizzly’s. He wasn’t around the cabin, so he was probably still out on the glacier. Cluny led the way across the ice bridge and through the pressure ridge. They came out onto clear surface two hundred yards below Grizzly just as he hauled something heavy out of the maw of the blue white ice.

What he hauled up was thickly frosted, but it was recognizable enough to be grim. The marshal drew his automatic as Grizzly turned, with the rope across his shoulder, ready to haul something back across the glacier.

The giant froze, watching them solidly as they came toward him. He slacked on the rope and started to shift his weight from one foot to the other, exactly like a bear.

“You boys got me to thinking maybe she did come out here so I come to take a look. She’s kept good enough for decent burying, but her head got kind of bashed when she fell in.”

“We can prove that in the laboratory fast enough,” Waring said grimly.

“You can?” Grizzly asked with surprise. “You mean you can tell how her head got so kind of dented?”

The marshal nodded, but Grizzly’s thoughts didn’t seem to be on his answer. He glanced up at the sun and then his eyes sought some telltale bit of shadow somewhere. Suddenly he gave a snarling laugh and kicked back with right boot, hurtling his wife’s corpse back into the crevasse. His wild laugh rose to a roar of humor.

But he had put down his foot in a coil of the rope and now it caught and jerked him flat. He clawed, but there was nothing to claw into on ice that had slicked with the many melts and refreezings of August. Roaring invective, he was dragged back into the crevasse himself.