With faces paling, the boys listened intently, while the rumble increased to a roar, growing steadily nearer.
Dick leaped up and looked up the gorge, a sudden suspicion leaping in his mind that froze him with consternation.
He was about to speak when the unmistakable sound of crashing, moving ice was borne to his ears. Around a bend in the gorge appeared a gigantic mass of snow, ice and stones which struck the opposite wall of the gorge with a shock that made the earth tremble under foot and sent a shower of fine ice and snow high into the air.
“Run for your lives!” cried Dick hoarsely. “It’s an avalanche, and we’re right in its path!”
CHAPTER XVI
BURIED IN A SNOW SLIDE
Fear lent wings to the three boys as they saw the awful wall of snow and ice bounding down the gorge upon them. With one accord they rushed toward the steep slope on their left, scrambling up it in frantic efforts to gain a height out of reach of the avalanche, before it descended and crushed them under its ponderous plunging weight.
The dog team sensed its peril instinctively and struggled after the boys, dragging the heavy sledge behind them. Toma, slightly in the rear, grasped the sledge and began helping the dogs in their unequal fight for safety.
“Leave the sledge go!” shouted Dick to the young Indian. “Save yourself.”
But the courageous Toma did not heed. Stubbornly, he stayed by the sledge, falling far behind his companions.
Then, with a roar that shook the walls of the gorge as if an earthquake had occurred, the avalanche plunged past on its way to the tundra far below.