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,