The Green Forest tribune., 1908-12-25

ward, passing around upheaving
 masses of dark stone, across slopes
 that were smooth as white satin, and,
 still further up the mountain side,
 found little hollows, evidently lined
 with brush but now filled with snow,
 simply big, glistening dimples in the
 mountains fat face; but he saw no
 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 mile or so
 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
 an earthquake was swaying the
 mountain or that he himself had been
 setzed with vertigo. Then with wild
 thrill he perceived that a strip of
 snow 200 feet wide and berhaps 800
 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 tha
 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,
 toppling and 'reeling and shouting fof
 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 fabled Horse
 of Death was as an insect. Something
 went through his brain like sheet
 of flame, in it picture of Sumpter
 sitting by the open fire of pine logs
 down in the cabin, 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 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 bear rolling and tossing on the hurl- ing mass. Thrown out of it's hibernat- ing bed among the rocks or decaying tree-roots, the animal was pitching about, now upon it's 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 fel-
 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 8 single moment.
 It must have been a 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 it's undulations 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 leapeG from the canyon wall, for throughout a few seconds there was no noise and
 he seemed being borne upon bed of feat >-S through space, then there was
 a .--f as of muffled 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 . printed romance, had been true to the fact. Sumpter had awakened to the coming of the avalanche only when 1t neared the brink of the wall, 70 feet above the cabin. His book dropped 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. Sumpter's face blanched as he stared at the strange object, then he thought of Donald and hurriediy 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 of the gulch to the opposite wall, some coo feet away. The bear had dropped from the tail of this rushing mass di- rectly upon the cabin.
 When Sumpter had got his fright ened nephew out of the smother of stuff in which he was fiounderng, the two young fellows stood with pale faces staring at each other for little space, then both, seeing what they had escaped, laughed joyously.
 Come into the cabin" said Stump ter. "we will have broiled bear steak