But the Pincheyra was one of those iron-hearted men who took no account of apparently impossible things. Born in the mountains, he had often struggled face to face with the tempest, and always he had come forth a conqueror from this gigantic struggle.
To attempt to rise and walk would have been madness; the soldier did not dream of it for a moment. Taking in his hand the knife from his right pocket, in order to give himself a hold, and planting it in the ground, the hardy mountaineer began to crawl gently, and with precaution, on his knees and elbows by the side of the ruins massed across the path.
At every step he stopped, and lowered his head to allow the squall around him to pass.
It required nearly an hour for him to traverse a distance of less than sixty yards. During this time his companions remained motionless, holding on to the ground.
At last Don Pablo reached the spot on which the avalanche had fallen. He looked around.
Brave as the soldier was, he could not repress a cry of anguish at the terrible spectacle.
The rocks over which the path was traced, torn away by the fall of the avalanche, had in some places given way for a space of more, than six yards, and had rolled over the precipice, opening a frightful chasm.
The ruins left by the avalanche were composed in a great measure of trees, and fragments of rock, which, entangled together, and massed, so to speak, by the branches and the underwood, formed a thick wall on the very edge of the gulf.
It was of no use thinking of forcing the passage with horses and mules.
The soldier with rage struck with his fist the obstacle that he could not destroy, and proceeded to rejoin his companions. After having cast a last look on the chasm, he prepared himself to retreat, when suddenly he thought he heard a sharp and prolonged cry, like that used by the mountaineers of all countries to communicate between themselves, often at considerable distances.