"Can't you hear it there?" I shouted, taking hold of him in my turn and pulling the other way. "It is coming down right where we stand, or not far below here!"
And thus we stood while the dreadful noise increased, until it seemed as if the world was being rent wide open. There was a confusion of thunderous sound--the grinding of rocks and ice, the crashing and snapping of great trees. The avalanche came nearer with terrific speed, until finally it filled all the region round with such a deafening noise that it was impossible even to guess where it would sweep down into the valley.
We ran a few steps upstream, then as many more back, and finally stood trembling, quite uncertain which way to fly. But only for a moment; just ahead of us the great forest trees began to leap out and downward from the steep mountain-side, and then the mass of the avalanche burst into the flat and piled up a hundred feet deep before us--a dirty ridge of wrecked mountain-side that extended away across the valley to the river. There was a last rumble and cracking of branches as it settled, and then all was still.
"You see that I was right," I said. "It did strike below us."
"Yes, you heard better than I did," my partner admitted, "but that is not what saved us. I am sure that the gods caused the pack-thong to break and stop us; otherwise we should have been right in the path of the slide."
Re-slinging our packs, we climbed the rough mass of the slide, round and over big boulders, ice blocks, and tree trunks, through piles of brush and broken branches. At the apex of the heap Pitamakan reached down, pulled something from the earth-stained snow, and passed it to me. It was the head and neck of a mountain goat, crushed almost flat, the flesh of which was still warm.
[Illustration: THE AVALANCHE BURST INTO THE FLAT]
"You see what would have happened to us if my pack-thong had not broken," he said grimly.
"It must be that many goats perish in this way," I remarked.
"Yes, and also many bighorn," he said. "I have heard the old hunters say that the bears, when they first come out in the spring, get their living from these slides. They travel from one to another, and paw round in search of the dead animals buried in them."