As he rounded a rocky point he came in sight of the cheery glow of their campfire. He saw a short cut back.
“Right over there,” he said to himself, “straight across that broad stretch of winter packed snow. What could be sweeter? I’ll use my bow as an Alpine staff. Not a bit of danger. Be there in no time.”
Having been raised on the plains, Johnny knew little of the mountains. The great broad bank of snow he was to cross, ten feet deep here, twenty there, was indeed hard packed by beating winter winds. But beneath it, forces of nature had long been at work. Little trickles of melted snow, working from pebble to pebble, had worn narrow beds beneath the bank. These tiny trickles had become rushing rivulets. The great snowbank, clinging there to the steep mountain side, was gradually being undermined.
Totally unconscious of all this, Johnny marched blithely along down the white incline.
Here the grade was steeper and he was obliged to move with care. There the surface was like a great broad pavement. Here he paused to admire the reflection of the moon in a dark pool of water, and there stood staring away at a wavering light far out and below.
“Might be on that river island. May be Indians,” he thought.
Faint and from some distance down came a disturbing sound. It was like some heavy body plunging down.
“What could that have been?” He quickened his pace.
Coming to a broad break in the snow, he gripped his bow securely and leaped the chasm.
Was it the shock of his landing that loosened the avalanche? Who can say? Enough that at this precise moment there came a solemn threatening rumble, and the boy felt himself moving downward.