Polly and Eleanor

by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

"Father and Bill were thrown down with the shaking of the ground caused by the terrific slide, and several times they were almost sucked into the vortex caused by the overwhelming ever-growing stream. Had it not been for Mike who had heard the rumble and knew what it meant, both Bill and father would have been lost. But Mike threw out a rope that father caught and quickly wound about himself, while Bill clutched on to father's legs. Thus Mike dragged them up to the tree where he had bound himself. The horses are gone!"

Mrs. Brewster seemed overcome at the recital of the awful ordeal the men had passed through, but Polly said encouragingly:

"Don't take on so, mother! 'All's well that ends well' and father and Bill are safe, you know."

"Oh, but this isn't all, Polly! Mike says when Grizzly starts an avalanche like that first one, the very force of its tearing away keeps on breaking away the ice-fields all around the peak. Another slide may come at any moment and pour down this side, you see. The men who had taken care of the horses when the others were fighting the fire were left stationed at the timber-line to watch. If they notice the faintest sign of another serious break on the peak, they are to signal a lookout left on the crest of this slope. And they in turn must warn Bill's son who was left sitting on top of this ledge. That is where Simms and Mike have gone now. There must have been a signal from Bill's boy to Simms."

Mrs. Brewster looked at her daughter to see if she could bear the rest of the story. Finding Polly as calm as she herself was, she continued:

"Father said the experience Simms and he went through was mere child's play to what it might be should Grizzly loosen up and send down a slide on this side of the peak. Of course, the fire and smoke added to the horror on the other side, but the actual avalanche was not as tremendous because the slope was partly protected by the abrupt drop of thousands of feet from the peak to the valley, down which the greater flood must have rushed.

"This side is on the direct down-slope from the peak, with nothing to break a snow-slide, or to carry off the bulk of the débris.

"This morning, when I rode up with Simms' party, we met two old trappers who were coming down. They had passed Old Grizzly Slide yesterday, and they said there must have been an awful thaw going on under the surface-ice of the Slide, as the yawning chasm where you discovered the crevice the other day was frightful. It made even their courageous spirits tremble at sight of it. But they turned again and rode up with us, as they said they could be useful to Bill. They are up on Top Notch now, scouting for the first symptoms of a slide."

Polly turned white as she heard the story, but she still had control of her voice, so she whispered: "Why don't we-all start down-trail to-night? Why lose time cooking supper, and have the men up there watching for the trouble?"

"Mike says we are safer in this cave than on the trail. It is impossible to go down the Indian trail at night, and Top Notch Trail is bad enough in the daytime, so that in the dark it is forbidding. He says this cave is high enough up on the ledge and near enough to the crest to escape most of the drift. The trash will be swept clear over the entrance and down into the ravine, while any snow or ice that might lodge up on the ledge before the cave will soon melt again. Then we can get away, when all is over."