Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-12-16


ward, passing around upheaying
masses of dark stone, across slopes
that were smooth as white satin, and
still further up the mountain side
found little hollcws, evidently lined
with brush but now filled with snow
simply big, glistening Gimples in the
mountains fat face; but he saw nc
deer.
Finally, being weary of labOring
through what was very much like an
infinite bed of glittering down, he
reached a point on the steep slope
apparently a quarter of a mile or sc
directly north of the cabin. AS he
stood there debating if he should
return to the draw" or attempt to
find a more direct route to the floor
of the gulch, he suddenly felt himself
moving. His first thought was that
IN earthquake was swaying the
mountain or that he himself had been
seized with vertigo. Then with a wild
thrill he perceived that strip OF
snow 200 feet wide and perhaps 500
feet in length was moving down the
mountain side!
Donald's gray eyes dilated with sud
den fear and horror. He was thrown
headlong in the snow hearing as he
fell the crunch of stones that were
being ripped out of their beds and the
crash and rending of stumps and
roots as they parted from their sock
cts in the earth. With every pulse
leaping in alarm he got to his feet
topping and Keeling and shouting for
aid as he glanced about him. The
next instant he was again thrown
headlong He was upon the back OF
a steed beside which the tabled Horse
of Death was as an insect. Something
went through his brain like a sheet
of flame, in it a picture of Sumpter
sitting by the open fire Of pine logs
down in the cabin, a book in his hand,
undreaming of this ruthless monster
rushing down to crush him.
The next moment Donald was again
upon his feet, pitching and clutching
at the air and shouting. In that mo-
ment he saw a very amazing thing,
though everything was both amazing
and not amazing as in some sort of in
describable dream. A hundred feet
to the rear of him, almost at the up
per tip of the avalanche, he saw a
bear rolling and tossing on the hurl-
ing mass. Thrown out of its hibernat-
ing bed among the rocks or decaying
tree-roots, the animal was pitching
about, now upon its feet then upon its
back, helpless as a fly upon an ocean
surge. Donald never knew why, but
he shouted at the bear, and he never
could recall afterwards exactly what
it was he shouted. He says now that
he thinks he commanded the bear
not to roll down upon him, which was
certainly absurd.
In his mind were many glancing
thoughts. In such moments the men
tality of man sometimes seems as a
diamond with many facets. He
thought of the Christmas tree to be
lighted in the parlor at home in Den
yer. of how tired he was of cOrned-
beef, of where they would bury him
when they took him crushed and dead
from the snow at the bottom Of the
gulch. whether or not his school fell
lows if they now saw him would
shout "Slide, Donald, slide!" as they
used to when he was running the
bases when playing ball, and many
other things, all, seemingly, in a
single moment.
1t must have been very short
period in which he was leaping and
tumbling and whirling about on the
mighty tobOggan, for the avalanche
ran down the mountain side like a
swiftly hurrying snake, save that its
fluctuations were up and down instead
of sidewise as with a serpent. It
seemed to Donald he had scarcely
drawn six breaths before the snow
slide shot from the precipice above the
cabin. Swift as was his flight he was
conscious that the slide had feared
from the canyon wall, for throughout
a few seconds there was no noise and
he seemed being borne upon a bed OF
: feathers through space, then there was
a roar as of mufT1ed thunder and he
was wallowing deep in snow.
The mental picture that had flashed
through Donald's mind of his young
uncle sitting by the fire engrossed in
a printed romance, had been true to
the fact. Sumpter had awakened to
the coming of the avalanche only
i when it neared the brink of the wall,
20 feet above the cabin. His book
droDDod from his hand and he made a
leap for the door. The next moment a
bear crashed through the roof and
smote the floor in front of the fire,
leaving the luckless animal lifeless.
Sumpters face blanched as he stared
at the strange object, then he thought
of Donald and hurriedly pushed his
way out of the door. The snow about
the cabin was up to his neck and the
roof was piled deep with it, but the
bulk of the slide had leaped clear over
the little house, heaping the bottom