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Warm and glowing from head to foot, with cheeks brightened by the delightful exercise, they would remain for hours enjoying the amusement of the snow-slide; the bright frost gemming the ground with myriads of diamonds, sparkling in their hair, or whitening it till it rivalled the snow beneath their feet.
"This side is on the direct down-slope from the peak, with nothing to break a snow-slide, or to carry off the bulk of the débris. "This morning, when I rode up with Simms' party, we met two old trappers who were coming down.
The afternoon passed swiftly and the horses were becoming jaded. At four o'clock it was almost dark. We had been going up a deep cañon and came upon an appalling sight. There had been a snow-slide and the cañon was half-filled with snow, rock, and broken trees.
And suddenly, before he ceased, and while they all thronged round me, there came a sharp strange sigh singing through the air, that grew into the wild discordant music of multitudinous echoes, and we all turned and sprang intuitively to see, rent in the moonlight and sheathed in the glorious spray of a thousand ice-falls, the Mount of Sorrow bow its head and come down, and, while the whole earth shook and smoked back in hoar vapors, the great snow-slide in its swift sheeting splendor flash and wipe out before our eyes the last timber of the hut and barn and byre of the Rayniers.
Balderson seems to have given Higgins his warmest coat before the snow-slide hit them. It killed them both. Hot Foot died instantly, but Balderson must have lived many hours, for the snow about his body was melted and in his pocket they found Hot Foot's watch.
He lay down again, but Charnock waited. This was the first snow-slide he had heard and he felt awed by the din. Growing in a long crescendo, it rolled down the hill in a torrent of sound, but by and by he thought he could distinguish different notes; the crash of trees carried away by the avalanche and the scream of gravel grinding across rocky scraps.
The whole way was blocked, and what to do we didn't know, for the horses could hardly be gotten along and we could not pass the snow-slide. We were twenty-five miles from home, night was almost upon us, and we were almost starved. But we were afraid to stay in that cañon lest more snow should slide and bury us, so sadly we turned back to find as comfortable a place as we could to spend the night.
"You showed plenty of pluck when we were in trouble with the red-skins, but I am sure there was not one of us that did not weaken when that snow-slide shot over us; and none of us need be ashamed to say so.
It was the joy of knowing that he had given back life and hope to Isobel and her husband. Each day he figured their progress along with his own. From the Eskimo village he had sent a messenger back to Churchill with a long report for the officer in command there, and in that report he had lied. He reported Scottie Deane as having died of the injury he had received in the snow-slide.
"Track's gone down not far ahead; snow-slide, I guess." He shrugged when Foster asked if it would be a long job. "You can see for yourself, if you like," he remarked, indicating a plume of smoke that rose above the pines. "There's a construction gang at work round the bend. It's a sure thing we won't pull out before you're back."
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