"Just think," said Jack, "in a few hours we shall be crossing that very lake in one of those steamers. They don't look large enough to carry people, do they?"
After an early lunch, which was eaten in an outdoor restaurant, they started to walk down the mountain. A part of the way the path was very steep. The boys raced along, for it was easier to run than to walk.
Soon they came to a place where a great mass of rocks had slipped down across the path during the last heavy rain. The boys could see where the rocks had torn up bushes and trees, as they dashed down the mountain side.
The little home of a herdsman, lower down on the mountain, had been completely buried.
When the herdsman came home after the rain was over, he found his house hidden under a load of rocks and trees. Of course, the poor man thought that his wife and six little children had all been killed, but he would not give them up until he had tried to save them.
He saw that one corner of his house was not quite covered, so he dug away the stones as fast as he could. Some friends came to help him, and at last the herdsman could hear his little children crying. This made him work even faster, for he knew that they were alive.
It did not lake long to make an opening through a broken window
It did not take the men long to make an opening through a broken window. There they found the mother and her six frightened children sitting close together in a corner of the room. The rest of the little house had been crushed in by the heavy rocks. In some way this one corner had been protected, and so the mother and her little family were saved.