A moment later the answering hail came, but, alas! he could not make sure in what direction.
An agony of despair seized him, and he uttered cry after cry.
Fatal mistake! The loud noise loosened the quivering masses of snow. Hamp felt the walls shake and heard the rustling glide. Throwing out his arms, he fought his way upward through the descending avalanche. Though twice beaten back, he gained an upright position. Had the snow been less light and powdery, he must have been crushed to the ground.
He was now firmly on his feet, but in danger of suffocation. His head was covered. The snow pressed against his mouth and nose. He gasped for breath. He clutched and tore at the weight above him, swinging his arms from side to side. Then the powdery masses slipped to right and left, disclosing a funnel-shaped aperture, through which filtered a current of cold air. Hamp uttered a cry of relief and made the opening larger. The top of the drift was about two feet above his head. He saw the circular patch of murky gray sky through the driving storm. He felt the icy flakes dropping upon his cheeks, and heard the hoarse, deafening hum of the wind. The youth was in no present danger, but otherwise his position was not improved. He could not force a way onward through the drift, nor could he get his head high enough to see where he was.
“It’s no go,” he muttered. “I’m stuck here like a pig in a poke. Unless I keep mighty still, I’ll have another avalanche from the surface.”
Just then he heard two lusty shouts, and the voices seemed to come from straight in front of him.
“Hurrah!” he yelled. “Brick! Jerry!”
The response quickly floated back, and at the same instant the wind drove a stinging shower of fine snow into his face.
Hamp wiped the snow off, and was about to utter another shout when he heard a shrill crackling above the din of the storm. As he stared upward he saw the disk of open air suddenly eclipsed by a sheet of blackness. More from instinct than logic, Hamp divined what this meant. Quick as a flash he dived downward with arms and head, and sought to burrow under the drift.
He was none too quick. He heard a dull crash, and felt himself seized by some mighty force and driven roughly against the very ground. There was a considerable weight of loose snow upon him, and when he had beaten it away from his face, his outstretched hands caught hold of something that was solid, but prickly and yielding.