"An avalanche, or so ’tis claimed by certain Alpine galériens I have rowed with, may be triggered by the sound of cannon-fire." Dappa had torn off his shirt, wadded it up, and stuffed it down the barrel, and was now feeding in double handfuls of shot. He followed that with his turban, and finally took up his long rammer. "I wonder if we may halt an avalanche thus." His long dreadlocks, freed from the imprisonment of the head-wrap, fell about his face as he bent forward to get the pad of the rammer into the muzzle.