The horses seemed to know instinctively that there was some upheaval of nature taking place, for they quivered along their sensitive nerves and nosed the air questioningly. Several of the highbred animals pulled at their halters and, with drawn-back lips, snapped viciously at the air as if to warn away the destruction.
"Oh, oh! Will it hit us?" wailed Barbara.
"No, we are safe on this opposite up-trail now. But a few hours delay in getting away this morning and we would have been caught in the drift," said Sam Brewster, wiping beads of cold perspiration from his brow.
"Daddy, you don't think that avalanche was on the side of our gold mine, do you?" asked Polly, plaintively.
"Pretty close to Choko's Find, Polly dear," said her father.
"Humph! Gol' all gone dis time!" added Mike, dramatically.
"Oh no! don't say that, Mike!" wailed Polly.
"Not our gold mine!" added Eleanor, with gasping breath.
"Mebbe no! Mike t'ink yes."
There fell a silence at that, and each one looked at the other, while the same thought passed through their minds: "If that slide buried Choko's Find again, where would they all have been had they remained in the cave?"