Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1888-10-15

/ Tue fuSn OF wafer over lar TdptuSs-
crunching, grinding sound, grow
ing louder and louder,-then a NIGH
ty roar filed the air, making the very
mountain shudder, and the avalanche
born, perhaps IN the loosening of
simple lump of ice from the rocks, or
tuft of snow dropping from some
overhaaging ledge, plunged down,
tossing and heaving, and bearing
great boulders lightly on its white
blllows, swapping off issolated trees
like reeds, and sweeping broad path
bare to the earth.
! Then, indeed, did the little cabin
quake and reel, and the sleepers
wake in terror from the sudden shock.
What is it? Sally sprang up in
bed, her heart loudly throbbing in
| the silence which followed.
Then a cry from the next room
made her leap from the bed and feel
her way out in the deep darkness,
through the door that sagged strange
ly and could be forced but partially
open, to the corner where her father
lay.
Something dreadful had happened
surely. Her hands groped over only
rough logs and snow. She felt her
way back with a great dread at her
heart, and now, with dim candle
above her white face, the truth was
quickly revealed.
One end of the cabin had been
crushed in by the slide, and the
heavy logs had fallen in upon Milton
Bruce. 1t was some time before
Sally could find her father in the.
mass of timbers.
Frantically, and with almost a
mans strength. she wrenched and
pried at the logs, and her courage
revived as some of them fell away.
But soon she had reached the linn
it of her desperate efforts. Try as
she might, the logs that held her
father down were immovable; and
Sally wrung her hands in despair,
as, recovering consciousness, her
father begged to be released.
With torn hands, she again and
again strove with the stubborn tim
bers, till she fell down beside them.
1t was all useless. She lay on the
hard floor and thought it all over
this awful thing which had come to
them in the darkness without pres
age, and left them in a deeper dark
ness than even that of night-the
suffering and despair they must un-
dergo through all the long, slow
hours, before kind death should re-
lease them.
II was too terrible for human en-
durance and for a long time Sally
was happily unconscious of misery.
On first recovering, it seemed like
horrible dream; yet there was the
grim truth staring her in the face,
and her father talking wildly beside
her.
Could nothing be done? The
snow might be ten or fifty feet above
them. She did not know. But it
would do no harm to find out. Sally /
thought it must now be day, and /
with feverish haste she peered into /
the solid snow wall at the ruined end
of the cabin.
1t was deep, for no light penetrat-
ed down through its white crystals. /
The windows, too, were dark as |
night. She ran to the kitchen. Was
it merely fancy? The snow GER
tainly had brighter look, as though /
the light were struggling to pierce it.
Sallv's courage rose. She must /
make her way out, if at all, from the
highest point in the cabin, and that
was through the chimney. She gazed
anxiously up its big, sooty throat.
1t really-7did look brighter than at
the windows even.
To think was to act with the brave /
Girl and, in less time than it takes /
to write it, Sally, wrapped for
journey, was creeping and working
her way up the rough stones, the |
fire-shovel in hand and her snow
shoes strapped to her back. When
little way up, the shovel slipped
from her grasp and fell with loud
clatter to the hearth. Nothing could |
be done without it, and she went |
down after it, this time tying it firm
ly to her arm.
Once at the top of the chimney,
place was soon scooped out in the
snow large enough for a foothold,
and she began working her way up
ward, at an angle, as best she could
in the darkness, like mole, digging
and beating tunnel for her body in
the packed drift, the dislodged snow
falling down the great chimney.
1t was slow, weary work; and
Sally would fain have given up in
despair, had not the muffied cries
of the sufferer below nerved her flag
ging energies.
But at length it began to grow
preceptibly lighter, then the pale
toiler could see to work. She was
nearing the surface; and with kind
of frenzy, she digged up, up, each
stroke bringing her nearer to light
and life.
Now she could hear the wind sweep
ing across the trackless snow. The
sun-rays penetrated the thin crust
above her head. A moment, and
foil nnnn her /