“Ran for your lives!” shouted Carteret. “We’re in the track, and will hardly escape as it is!”
In a trice we were out of the lean-to, panic-stricken and alarmed, thinking of nothing but our lives; for of all perils of the Great Lone Land, the snow slide, with its speed and destructive power, was the most to be dreaded. We forgot the dead man—the gold under his pillow. We sped down the valley as though on wings, not daring to look up the hillside, where the avalanche was cleaving its way with a deafening noise, with the crash of falling trees, the grind of dislodged bowlders, and the roar of tons and tons of loosened snow. And the monster seemed to be reaching for us!
Flora’s dear face took shape before me in the frosty air, and I fancied I could hear her voice pleading with me to remain at the fort. Should I ever return to her arms again? The thought lent me speed, and I out distanced my companions. The next instant I tripped in a clump of bushes and fell headlong, and plump on top of me came Carteret and Captain Rudstone.
We were all three so tangled together that our efforts to extricate ourselves only led to worse confusion. We broke through the crust and floundered in soft and powdery snow. As we struggled hard—we had fled but a short distance—the avalanche struck the valley close behind us. There was first a mighty crash that made the ground tremble, next a long, deafening grind like a hundred thunderpeals in one, and then the hissing rush of a few belated rocks.
Silence followed, and we knew that we were saved. With grateful hearts and trembling limbs we scrambled out of our pit and regained the firm crust.
“Thank God!” I exclaimed.
“We had a close shave of it, comrades,” Carteret said huskily, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow.
We turned back and were pulled up short within twenty feet. For in front of us, stretching two-thirds of the way across the valley, was a lofty barrier of snow, trees and bowlders; its track down the hillside was marked by a clean, wide swath, the beginning of which we could not see. And deep under the fallen mass, covered by tons and tons of compact debris, was the crushed body of Hiram Buckhorn.
“He could not have a better grave,” said Captain Rudstone. “No men or beasts will ever despoil it.”
“Peace to his bones!” replied Carteret, reverently taking off his cap. “He deserved to live, after what he did.”