Hardly were the words out of his mouth when they heard a crackle and roar far up on the pinnacle precipice. Looking quickly upward, they saw snow powder, like white smoke, rising from the base of the cliff, and something descending toward them, not in the chute at all, but on top of the smooth snow!
“Run for it!” Bennie instinctively cried, taking a step forward that nearly yanked Dumplin’ off his feet again.
“Stop!” the doctor cried, in a sharp command. “Don’t you dare give orders again! Don’t try to run! You’ll have us all down. Watch it, till we see just where it is coming, and how big it is. Let it come between us if we have to, and if it’s too big to pass under the rope, I’ll cut. Stand ready to hold the rope up, or move as I tell you to!”
The thing was coming toward them, piling up snow in front of it. This piling up of the snow impeded its progress and diminished its speed. It had to push its way. Instead of coming a mile a minute, as the boys expected it would, it came slowly enough to give them time to estimate where it would pass.
“Move ahead!” the doctor snapped. “Easy, now—don’t try to run. Don’t forget your stocks—don’t pull on the rope. Steady!”
They moved forward several steps, and just as Norman, the last one on the rope, took a long, quick stride of two steps instead of one, the great hunk of lava, as big as a molasses hogshead, went slowly but inexorably downward, over the very spot where, a few seconds before, they had stood! Slowly as it moved, pushing the snow ahead, and piling it out on the sides, nothing could have stood in its path. They watched it go on down, leaving a track two feet deep behind it.
“There’s chute number three just started,” Norman said.
They heard another crack and roar on the pinnacle as he spoke, and looking up again saw something starting down one of the big chutes behind them.
“Say, let’s get out of here!” Dumplin’ cried. “I don’t like this.”
“I’m not stuck on it myself,” Uncle Billy answered. “Forward, march!”