“I was only looking out beyond the rock. I don’t think it would be possible to get on now. I can’t see even the ridge of stones we climbed over.”
“I wish it was I,” said Jock, “I’ll be bound I could manage it!” Then impatiently—“Something must be done, you know, Armie. We can’t stay here all night.”
Yet when Armine went a step or two to see whether there was any practicability of moving, he instantly called out against his attempting to go away. He was in a good deal of pain, and high-spirited boy as he was, was thoroughly unnerved and appalled, and much less able to consider than the usually quieter and more timid Armine. Suddenly there was a frightful thunderous roar and crash, and with a cry of “An avalanche,” the brothers clasped one another fast and shut their eyes, but ere the words “Have mercy” were uttered all was still again, and they found themselves alive!
“I don’t think it was an avalanche,” said Armine, recovering first. “It was most likely to be a great mass of ice tumbling off the arch at the bottom of the glacier. They do make a most awful row. I’ve heard one before, only not so near. Anyway we can’t be far from the bottom of the glacier, if I only could crawl there.”
“No, no;” cried Jock, holding him tight; “I tell you, you can’t do it.”
Jock could not have defined whether he was most actuated by fears for his brother’s safety or by actual terror at being left alone and helpless. At any rate Armine much preferred remaining, in all the certain misery and danger, to losing sight of his brother, with the great probability of only being further lost himself.
“I wonder whether Chico would find mother,” he said.
Jock brightened; Armine found an envelope in his pocket, and scribbled—
“On the moraine. Jock’s ankle sprained—Come.”
Then Jock produced a bit of string, wherewith it was fastened to the dog’s collar, and then authoritatively bade Chico go to mother.