"That is the blamedest odd thing I ever saw," Sam Hicks said. "I wonder the weight of the snow didn't break it in."
"I expect it just shot over it, Sam," Harry said. "It must have been travelling so mighty fast that the whole mass jumped across, only just rubbing the skin. Of course the boulders and stones must have gone clean over. That shows what a narrow escape we have had; for if that outer rock had been a foot or so higher, the skin would have caved in, and our place would have been filled chock up with snow in a moment. Waal, we may as well turn in again, for I feel cold to the bones already."
On the evening of the fifth day the snow ceased falling, and next morning the sky was clear and bright. Preparations were at once made for a start. A batch of bread had been baked on the previous evening. Some buckets of hot gruel were given to the horses, a meal was hastily eaten, the horses saddled and the packs arranged, and before the sun had been up half an hour they were on their way. The usual stillness of the mountains was broken by a variety of sounds. From the valley at their feet came up sharp reports, as a limb of a tree, or sometimes the tree itself, broke beneath the weight of the snow. A dull rumbling sound, echoing from hill to hill, told of the falls of avalanches. Scarcely had the echoes of one ceased, than they began again in a fresh quarter. The journey was toilsome in the extreme, for the horses' hoofs sank deep in the freshly-fallen snow, rendering their progress exceedingly slow.
"If we had been sure that this weather would hold, chief, it would have been better to have waited a few days before making our start, for by that time the snow would have been hard enough to travel on."
The chief shook his head. "Winter coming for good," he said, waving his hand towards the range of snowy summits to the north. "Clouds there still; if stop, not able to cross pass till next summer."
"That is so; we agreed as to that yesterday, and that if we don't get over now the chances are we shall never get over at all. Yet, it is a pity we can't wait a few days for a crust to form on the snow."
Twice in the course of the next hour avalanches came down from the hills above them; the first sweeping down into the valley a quarter of a mile behind them, the next but two or three hundred yards ahead of them. Scarcely a word was spoken from end to end of the line. They travelled in Indian file, and each horse stepped in the footprints of its predecessor. Every few hundred yards they changed places, for the labour of the first horse was very much heavier than of those following. At the end of an hour the men drew together for a consultation. There was a wide break in the line of cliffs, and a valley ran nearly due south.
"What do you think, chief? This confounded snow has covered up all signs of the trail, and we have got to find our own way. There is no doubt this valley below is running a deal too much to the west, and that the trail must strike off somewhere south. It looks to me as if that were a likely valley through the cliff. There is no hiding the fact that if we take the wrong turn we are all gone coons."
"Leaping Horse knows no more than his brother," the chief said gravely. "He knows the pass is on the western side of the great peak. The great peak lies there," and he pointed a little to the west of the break in the hills up which they were looking.
"It may be that we must cross the hills into another valley, or perhaps this will turn west presently."