V. THE AVALANCHE
Just then a crashing sound was heard,
That caused each ruddy cheek to blanch,
Though no one moved nor spoke a word,
All listening to the avalanche
With apprehensive ears intent,
Knew what a mountain snowslide meant.
Nor marvel that each visage paled,
Nor that the hardy sinews quailed;
These terrors of the solitude
The mountain's timbered slopes denude,
Sweeping the frozen spruce and fir
As with a snowy scimitar;
Nor can the stately pines prevent
Its irresistible descent;
A foe admitting no defence.
A moment passed in dire suspense,
And at its expiration brief,
Each heaved a breath of deep relief;
The snowslide, terrible and vast,
Had precipice and chasm leapt,
And down the rugged mountains swept,
Missing the cabin as it passed.
The cabin clock had indicated five
When due composure was at length restored;
As evidence that all were still alive,
Queries were made about the "festive board,"
As sailors shipwrecked on some barren rock,
After the first excitement of the shock,
Mingle their words of gratitude and prayer
With speculations on the bill of fare.
No depth of danger man is called to face,
No exultation nor extreme disgrace,
No victory nor depression of defeat
Can shake recurrent Hunger from her seat.
The cabin oracle so often used,
A pack of playing cards, was soon produced.
A turn at whist the afternoon before,
Told who should cut the wood and sweep the floor.
As one of the disasters of defeat,
Washing the dishes fell to Russian Pete.
A game of freeze-out, played with equal zeal,
Decided who should cook the evening meal;
Conspiring cards electing Uncle Jim,
The culinary task devolved on him.
Accordingly, with acquiescent nod,
Abiding by the fortunes of the game,
This patriarch, so venerable and odd,—
Whose skill in cooking was of local fame,
Knocked out the ashes from his meerschaum pipe
And laid it tenderly upon the shelf,
Took a preliminary wash and wipe,
And squinting in the mirror at himself,
Like most of those possessed of little hair,
Brushed what he still had left with greatest care.
Small use for comb or brush had Uncle Jim,
His capillary wealth, a grayish rim
Or hirsute chaplet, as it had been called
By other miners less completely bald,
Fringing his head an inch above the ears,
Marked off his shining pate in hemispheres.
His flowing beard, of venerable air,
Enjoyed a strict monopoly in hair,
As if the raven curls that once adorned
His occiput, that habitation scorned
And took, as an expression of chagrin,
A change of venue to his ample chin.
When Uncle Jim was duly washed and groomed,
The running conversation was resumed,
And as the veteran his task pursued,
Mixing the biscuit dough with judgment good,
All smoked and talked, excepting Dad McGuire,
Who, helping Uncle Jim, stirred up the fire,
Raking the embers in a little pile,
Then warmed the old Dutch oven up a while,
And after greasing with a bacon rind,
The biscuit dough was to its depths consigned.
Soon from within the oven, partly hid
By embers piled upon the cumbrous lid,
The baking powder biscuits nestling there
With wholesome exhalations charged the air.
A pot of beans suspended by a wire
Swung like a pendulum above the fire,
And answered every flame's combustive kiss
With roundelay of bubble and of hiss,
While in the esculent commotion swam
The residue of what was once a ham.
Though epicures, who yearn for fowl and fish,
May scorn this plain and inexpensive dish,
So free from the extravagance of waste,
Yet succulent and pleasant to the taste,
Of all the varied products of the soil,
The bean is most esteemed by those who toil.
Removed, in place less prominent and hot,
One might have seen the old black coffee pot,
And watched the puffs of aromatic steam
Rise on the background of the firelight's gleam.
A pleasant sibilation filled the room,
As with an unctuous savor or perfume
The bacon sizzled in the frying-pan,
The bane and terror of dyspeptic man;
But those who labor for their daily bread
Of sedentary ills have little dread.
The simple yet salubrious repast
Was on the rustic table spread at last.
No cut-glass flashed and sparkled in the light,
Nor burnished silver service met the sight.
No butter dish, nor sugar bowl was seen,
The grains of sugar, white and saccharine,
Imprisoned in a baking powder can,
Rose in a wilderness of pot and pan.
The butter firkin stood upon a shelf
Where every one could reach and help himself.
The nibbling rodent and destructive moth
Found naught to lure them in the shape of cloth.
No tablespread of costly linen lent
Its white disguise or figured ornament
To catch the bacon or the coffee stain.
Nor was there cup or plate of porcelain,
For empty cans, stripped of their labels, bare,
And pie tins held the same positions there.
All congregated 'round the simple spread
And ate the beans and baking powder bread,
With all the satisfaction and delight
That crown the hungry miner's appetite;
Not gluttony, that enemy to health,
That often follows in the trail of wealth,
But wholesome relish, which the laboring poor
Enjoy, who eat their fill, but eat no more.
[ arrayed in nature's pristine dress]
"Arrayed in Nature's pristine dress
This was, indeed, a wilderness."
See page [29]
The final course was ushered in at last,
When apple sauce around the board was passed;
As Uncle Jim stretched forth his hand across
The table to the dish of apple-sauce,
And on his ample pie tin placed some more,
A hurried knock resounded from the door,
And Steve McCoy, a miner in the camp,
With brow from snow and perspiration damp,
Rushed in, from out the white and whirling waste,
In the excitement incident to haste,
And waiving further ceremony cried:—
"Our cabin has been taken by a slide!"
Steve as a snowy Santa Claus appeared,
Pulling the icicles from off his beard,
Relating, in his intervals of breath,
His tale of dire disaster and of death;
He, and his partner "Smithy," were on shift
Within the tunnel working in a drift,
Chasing a stringer in their search for ore,
Within the hill a thousand feet or more.
The rock was hard and both of them were tired,
The holes were blasted as the work required;
Then to their consternation and surprise,
Upon emerging from the tunnel's mouth,
No hospitable cabin met their eyes
Upon the hillside, sloping toward the south;
The hut of logs where they had cooked and slept
Had been from human eyes forever swept.
Their partners, it were reason to presume,
Were suffocating in a snowy tomb.
"Smithy" had gone to Uncle Bobby Green,
Whose cabin lay the nearest to the scene,
To summon help, and get the boys to go
To probe with poles and shovels in the snow,
To find the living, or if life had sped,
To make the avalanche yield up its dead.
Of partners, Steve and Smithy had but two,
"Daddy" McLaughlin and young Dick McGrew,
Uncle and nephew, patriarch and youth,
Both men of strict integrity and truth.
Four other miners on another lease
Dwelt with the boys in harmony and peace.
Two strangers, who arrived the night before,
Had been invited, till the storm was o'er,
To share their hospitality. Their fate
Had raised the list of dead, perhaps, to eight.
Ere Steve had panted forth his final word,
The boys had risen up with one accord;
The rescue must be tried at any cost,
The chance, however slight, must not be lost.
Steve as a runner who has reached his goal,
Leaned half exhausted on his snowshoe pole,
The while his sturdy auditors began
To don their caps and mittens, to a man,
Then wrapping mufflers 'round their ears and throats,
Put on their clumsy, canvas overcoats.
Thanks to the providence of Dad McGuire,
Who always kept a stock of baling wire
And odds and ends of everything around,
Their feet were quickly and securely bound
With canvas ore sacks or with gunny-sacks,
A thing the miner's wardrobe seldom lacks.