AN AVALANCHE
"You don't think, chief," Harry asked, "that there is any chance of the
'Rappahoes taking it into their heads to come up to have a look round?"
"Indians keep in lodges, no like cold; they think we have gone on over
pass. If weather gets fine perhaps they come to look for our guns and
packs. They think sure we die in snow-storm when we up in pass. When
snow stops falling, we make no more fire; but path from valley all shut
up by snow now."
"Yes, I don't think anyone would try to climb it till the sun has
cleared the track; it was a pretty bad place when we came up," Harry
said. "I don't say that men on foot could not make their way up; but as
you say, the red-skins are not likely to try it until the weather has
cleared a bit, though I don't say that they wouldn't if they knew we
were camped here close to the top."
"What noise is that?" Tom asked. "I have heard it several times before,
but not so loud as that."
"Snow-slide," Leaping Horse said. "Snow come down from mountains; break
off trees, roll rocks down. Bad place all along here."
"Yes. I saw that you looked up at the hills behind there before you
looked over the edge here, chief," Ben Gulston said, "and I reckoned
that you had snow-slides in your mind. I thought myself that it was like
enough the snow might come tumbling over the edge of that high wall and
then come scooting down over where we war, and there would have been no
sort of show for us if we had been camped whar the trail goes along."
"Leaping Horse has heard from his red brothers with whom he has spoken
that trail from top of valley very bad when snow falls. Many Indians
stopping too long at fort, to trade goods, have been swept away by
snow-slides when caught in storm here."
"I thought it looked a bad place," Harry remarked. "There ain't no
fooling with a snow-slide anyway. I have come across bones once or twice
lying scattered about in snug-looking valleys--bones of horses and men,
and it was easy to see they had been killed by a snow-slide coming down
on them. Rocks were heaped about among them, some of the bones were
smashed. They had been hunting or trapping, and sheltered up in a valley
when the storm came on and the slide had fallen on them, and there they
had laid till the sun melted the snow in summer, when the coyotes and
the vultures would soon clean the bones." He broke off suddenly; there
was a dull sound, and at the same moment a distinct vibration of the
ground, then a rustling murmur mingled with a rumbling as of a waggon
passing over a rocky ground.
"There is another one," Jerry exclaimed, "and it is somewhere just above
us. Keep your backs to the wall, boys."
[Illustration: "There Is Another Avalanche, Keep Your Backs To The Wall,
Boys"]
Louder and louder grew the sound; the tremor of the earth increased, the
horses neighed with fright, the men stood with their backs against the
rock next to the hill. Suddenly the light was darkened as a vast mass of
snow mingled with rocks of all sizes leapt like a torrent over the edge
of the cliff, the impetus carrying it over the outer wall of their
shelter and down into the ravine. There was a mighty sound of the
crashing of trees, mingled with a thumping and rolling of the rocks as
they clashed against the side of the ravine and went leaping down into
the valley. The ground shook with a continuous tremor, and then the
light returned as suddenly as it had been cut off, and a few seconds
later a dead stillness succeeded the deafening roar from below. The
passage of the avalanche overhead had lasted but a minute, though to the
men standing below it the time had seemed vastly longer. Instinctively
they had pressed themselves against the rock, almost holding their
breath, and expecting momentarily that one of the boulders in its
passage would strike the top of the outside wall and fall in fragments
among them. The silence that followed was unbroken for some seconds, and
then Sam Hicks stepped a pace forward.
"Jee-rusalem!" he said, "that was a close call. I don't know how you
felt, boys, but it seemed as if all the sand had gone out of me, and I
weakened so that my knees have not done shaking yet."
The men, accustomed as they were to danger, were all equally affected.
Tom felt relieved to see that the others all looked pale and shaken, for
he was conscious that he had been in a terrible fright, and that his
legs would scarcely support his weight.
"I am glad to hear you say so, Sam, for I was in an awful funk; but I
should not have said so if you hadn't spoken."
"You needn't be ashamed of that, Tom," his uncle put in. "You showed
plenty of pluck when we were in trouble with the red-skins, but I am
sure there was not one of us that did not weaken when that snow-slide
shot over us; and none of us need be ashamed to say so. A man with good
grit will brace up, keep his head cool and his fingers steady on the
trigger to the last, though he knows that he has come to the end of his
journey and has got to go down; but it is when there is nothing to do,
no fight to be made, when you are as helpless as a child and have no
sort of show, that the grit runs out of your boots. I have fought
red-skins and Mexicans a score of times; I have been in a dozen shooting
scrapes in saloons at the diggings; but I don't know that I ever felt so
scared as I did just now. Ben, there is a jar of whisky in our outfit;
we agreed we would not touch it unless one of us got hurt or ill, but I
think a drop of medicine all round now wouldn't be out of place."
There was a general assent. "But before we take it," he went on, "we
will take off our hats and say 'Thank God' for having taken us safe
through this thing. If He had put this shelter here for us express, He
could not have planted it better for us, and the least we can do is to
thank Him for having pulled us through it safe."
The men all took off their hats, and stood silent for a minute or two
with bent heads. When they had replaced their hats Ben Gulston went to
the corner where the pack-saddles and packs were piled, took out a small
keg, and poured out some whisky for each of the white men. The others
drank it straight; Tom mixed some water with his, and felt a good deal
better after drinking it. Ben did not offer it to the Indians, neither
of whom would touch spirits on any occasion.
"It is a good friend and a bad enemy," Harry said as he tossed off his
portion. "As a rule there ain't no doubt that one is better without it;
but there is no better medicine to carry about with you. I have seen
many a life saved by a bottle of whisky. Taken after the bite of a
rattlesnake, it is as good a thing as there is. In case of fever, and
when a man is just tired out after a twenty-four hours' tramp, a drop of
it will put new life into him for a bit. But I don't say as it hasn't
killed a sight more than it has cured. It is at the bottom of pretty
nigh every shooting scrape in the camps, and has been the ruin of
hundreds of good men who would have done well if they could but have
kept from it."
"But you ain't a temperance man yourself, Harry?"
"No, Sam; but then, thank God, I am master of the liquor, and not the
liquor of me. I can take a glass, or perhaps two, without wanting more.
Though I have made a fool of myself in many ways since I have come out
here, no man can say he ever saw me drunk; if liquor were to get the
better of me once, I would swear off for the rest of my life. Don't you
ever take to it, Tom; that is, not to get so as to like to go on
drinking it. In our life we often have to go for months without it, and
a man has got to be very careful when he goes down to the settlements,
else it would be sure to get over him."
"I don't care for it at all, uncle."
"See you don't get to care for it, Tom. There are plenty start as you
do, and before they have been out here long they do get to like it, and
from that day they are never any good. It is a big temptation. A man has
been hunting or trapping, or fossicking for gold in the hills for
months, and he comes down to a fort or town and he meets a lot of mates.
One says 'Have a drink?' and another asks you, and it is mighty hard to
be always saying 'no'; and there ain't much to do in these places but to
drink or to gamble. A man here ain't so much to be blamed as folks who
live in comfortable houses, and have got wives and families and decent
places of amusement, and books and all that sort of thing, if they take
to drink or gambling. I have not any right to preach, for if I don't
drink I do gamble; that is, I have done; though I swore off that when I
got the letter telling me that your father had gone. Then I thought what
a fool I had made of myself for years. Why, if I had kept all the gold I
had dug I could go home now and live comfortably for the rest of my
life, and have a home for my nieces, as I ought to have. However, I have
done with it now. And I am mighty glad it was the cards and not drink
that took my dust, for it is a great deal easier to give up cards than
it is to give up liquor when you have once taken to it. Now let us talk
of something else; I vote we take a turn up on to the trail, and see
what the snow-slide has done."
Throwing the buffalo robes round their shoulders the party went outside.
The air was too thick with snow to enable them to perceive from the
platform the destruction it had wrought in the valley below, but upon
ascending the path to the level above, the track of the avalanche was
plainly marked indeed. For the width of a hundred yards, the white
mantle of snow, that covered the slope up to the point where the wall of
cliff rose abruptly, had been cleared away as if with a mighty broom.
Every rock and boulder lying upon it had been swept off, and the surface
of the bare rock lay flat, and unbroken by even a tuft of grass. They
walked along the edge until they looked down upon their shelter. The
bear's hide was still in its place, sloping like a pent-house roof, from
its upper side two or three inches below the edge of the rock, to the
other wall three feet lower. It was, however, stripped of its hair, as
cleanly as if it had been shorn off with a razor, by the friction of the
snow that had shot down along it.
"That is the blamedest odd thing I ever saw," Sam Hicks said. "I wonder
the weight of the snow didn't break it in."
"I expect it just shot over it, Sam," Harry said. "It must have been
travelling so mighty fast that the whole mass jumped across, only just
rubbing the skin. Of course the boulders and stones must have gone clean
over. That shows what a narrow escape we have had; for if that outer
rock had been a foot or so higher, the skin would have caved in, and our
place would have been filled chock up with snow in a moment. Waal, we
may as well turn in again, for I feel cold to the bones already."
On the evening of the fifth day the snow ceased falling, and next
morning the sky was clear and bright. Preparations were at once made for
a start. A batch of bread had been baked on the previous evening. Some
buckets of hot gruel were given to the horses, a meal was hastily eaten,
the horses saddled and the packs arranged, and before the sun had been
up half an hour they were on their way. The usual stillness of the
mountains was broken by a variety of sounds. From the valley at their
feet came up sharp reports, as a limb of a tree, or sometimes the tree
itself, broke beneath the weight of the snow. A dull rumbling sound,
echoing from hill to hill, told of the falls of avalanches. Scarcely had
the echoes of one ceased, than they began again in a fresh quarter. The
journey was toilsome in the extreme, for the horses' hoofs sank deep in
the freshly-fallen snow, rendering their progress exceedingly slow.
"If we had been sure that this weather would hold, chief, it would have
been better to have waited a few days before making our start, for by
that time the snow would have been hard enough to travel on."
The chief shook his head. "Winter coming for good," he said, waving his
hand towards the range of snowy summits to the north. "Clouds there
still; if stop, not able to cross pass till next summer."
"That is so; we agreed as to that yesterday, and that if we don't get
over now the chances are we shall never get over at all. Yet, it is a
pity we can't wait a few days for a crust to form on the snow."
Twice in the course of the next hour avalanches came down from the hills
above them; the first sweeping down into the valley a quarter of a mile
behind them, the next but two or three hundred yards ahead of them.
Scarcely a word was spoken from end to end of the line. They travelled
in Indian file, and each horse stepped in the footprints of its
predecessor. Every few hundred yards they changed places, for the labour
of the first horse was very much heavier than of those following. At the
end of an hour the men drew together for a consultation. There was a
wide break in the line of cliffs, and a valley ran nearly due south.
"What do you think, chief? This confounded snow has covered up all signs
of the trail, and we have got to find our own way. There is no doubt
this valley below is running a deal too much to the west, and that the
trail must strike off somewhere south. It looks to me as if that were a
likely valley through the cliff. There is no hiding the fact that if we
take the wrong turn we are all gone coons."
"Leaping Horse knows no more than his brother," the chief said gravely.
"He knows the pass is on the western side of the great peak. The great
peak lies there," and he pointed a little to the west of the break in
the hills up which they were looking.
"It may be that we must cross the hills into another valley, or perhaps
this will turn west presently."
"I tell you what, Harry," Sam Hicks said, "my opinion is, that our best
plan by a long chalk will be to go back to our last place and to stop
there for a bit. We have got b'ar's flesh enough for another fortnight,
and we may kill some more game afore that is done. Ef this is but a
spell of snow it may melt enough in another ten days for us to make out
the trail and follow it. Ef, as the chief thinks, we have got winter
right down on us, we must wait till the snow crust hardens ef it is a
month or double. Anything is better than going on like this. What with
this soft snow and these 'tarnal snow-slides, there ain't no more chance
of our getting over that pass in one day's journey, than there air in
our flying right down to Salt Lake City. Ef the worst comes to the
worst, I tell yer I would rather go back and take our chance of
following the Big Wind River down, and fighting the red-skins, than I
would of crossing over these dog-goned hills."
The other three men were of the same opinion.
"Well, what do you say, chief?" Harry asked the Indian.
"Leaping Horse thinks that the trail will not be found until next
summer," the chief replied quietly. "Heap of hills in front and heap of
snow. If snow-storm catch us in the hills no find way anywhere. Leaping
Horse is ready to do whatever his white brother thinks."
"Well, I am with the others," Harry said. "I don't like the look of
those clouds. They are quiet enough now, but they may begin to shift any
time, and, as you say, if we are caught in a snow-storm on the hills
there is an end of us. I think Sam is right. Even if we have to rustle
all through the winter in that hut there, I would rather face it than
keep on."
That settled it. The horses' heads were turned, and they retraced their
steps until they reached the shelter. The bear's-skin had been left
where it was, the fire was soon set going, and there was a general
feeling of satisfaction as they laid out the robes and blankets again.
"Look here, boys," Harry said, "this is not going to be a holiday time,
you bet. We have got to make this place a sight snugger than it is now,
for, I tell you, when the winter sets in in earnest, it will be cold
enough here to freeze a buffalo solid in an hour. We have got to set to
work to make a roof all over this place, and we have got to hunt to lay
in a big stock of meat. We have got to get a big store of food for the
horses, for we must be mighty careful with our flour now. We can wait a
fortnight to see how things go, but if it is clear then that we have got
to fight it out here through the winter, we must shoot the pack-ponies
at once, and I reckon the others will all have to go later. However, we
will give them a chance as long as we can."
"Take them down into the valley," the chief said. "All Indian horses."
"Ah, I didn't think of that, chief. Yes, they are accustomed to rustle
for their living, and they may make a shift to hold on down there. I
don't think there is much fear of Indians coming up."
"No Indians," Leaping Horse said. "Indians go away when winter set in.
Some go to forest, some go to lodges right down valley. No stop up here
in mountains. When winter comes plenty game--big-horn, wapiti."
"Ah, that is a more cheerful look-out, chief. If we can get plenty of
meat we can manage without flour, and can go down and give the ponies a
pail of hot gruel once a week, which will help them to keep life
together. The first thing, I take it, is to cut some poles for the roof.
I am afraid we shall have to go down to the bottom for them."
"Waal, we needn't begin that till to-morrow," Sam Hicks said. "If we had
them, we have got no skins to cover them."
"Cut brushwood," Indian said. "First put plenty of brushwood on poles,
then put skins over."
"Yes, that is the plan, chief. Well, if we get down there we shall have
to take our shovels and clear the snow off some of the narrow ledges. If
we do that we can lead one of the horses down to pack the poles up
here."
The chief went out on to the platform. "No use clear snow now. Clouds
moving. In two hours snow fall again."
The others joined him outside. "I reckon you are right, chief," Jerry
said. "It is mighty lucky we didn't go on. It can't be much worse here
than it was before."
At three in the afternoon it began to snow heavily again. There was less
wind than there had been on the previous occasion, and the snow drifted
through the entrance less than before. Just as they were turning in for
the night an ominous crack was heard above. All leapt from their
blankets, and looking up they could see by the light of the fire that
the poles supporting the skin were all bent in a curve downwards.
"Jee-rusalem!" Sam Hicks exclaimed, "the whole outfit will be coming
down on us."
"That it will, Sam. You see, there is no wind as there was before, and
one of our jobs will be keeping the roof clear of snow. Turn out, boys;
we must get rid of it somehow."
They at once set to work to lash two poles, some eight feet long, to the
handles of the shovels, and as soon as this was done they all turned
out. On reaching the edge of the ravine above the roof, they first
cleared away the snow down to the rock so as to have firm standing, and
then proceeded to shovel the snow off the surface of the skin. It was
easier work than they expected, for as soon as it was touched it slid
down the incline, and in a very few minutes the whole was cleared off.
"I think that is good until morning now," Harry said. "As long as the
snow lasts we shall have to do it every few hours. Directly we get a
spell of fine weather we must put some more poles under it to strengthen
it."
For six days the snow continued to fall without intermission. At
daybreak, at mid-day, and the last thing before they turned in at night
the snow was cleared off the hide. With this exception they did not stir
out of the shelter. They had also each day to clear out the inner
portion of the fissure, as the snow now frequently broke through the
trees in masses, startling the horses, and keeping them in a state of
restlessness. The sixth day it stopped snowing, and the next morning the
sky was bright and clear. The whole party at once started out, two of
them taking shovels, and the rest brooms that they had made during the
long hours of their confinement. By the middle of the day they had
cleared the path down into the valley, and on their way back to dinner
each carried up a large bundle of faggots.
The meal was cooked and eaten hastily, and the whole of the horses were
then led down into the valley. Here a couple of dozen stout poles for
the roof were cut by the whites, the two Indians at once going up the
valley in search of game. In half an hour two rifle-shots were heard,
and presently Hunting Dog ran in with the news that they had killed two
wapiti. Jerry and Sam Hicks at once went off with him, leading two
horses, and presently returned with the dead deer fastened across their
backs.
"They are very like pictures I have seen of moose," Tom said to his
uncle as he examined the great stags.
"New-comers often call them moose, Tom; but there is a difference
between them, though what the difference is I cannot tell you, for I
have never hunted moose. I believe the wapiti are peculiar to the West.
They often go in great herds of three or four hundreds together."
"The chief says there are a great many of them up the valley," Jerry put
in. "They made off when he fired, but I could see their foot-tracks
myself all about. He says they have been driven down here by the storm
for shelter. He has gone round with the lad to head them back."
"That is good news, Jerry. The meat we have got already will last some
time, but it is as well to lay in a good stock, and we want the skins
badly to make our roof. You had better lead these horses to the foot of
the path, and then we will all take our post behind trees across the
valley."
An hour later they heard the reports of two rifles a long way up the
valley, and all stood in readiness. A few minutes later there was a dull
trampling sound, and almost directly afterwards a herd of wapiti came
along at a heavy trot, ploughing their way but slowly through the snow.
"Don't use your revolvers, boys," Harry had said, "except to finish off
a stag you have wounded with your rifle. The chance is all against your
bringing them down, and the poor brutes would only get away to die."
One after another the rifles rang out. Tom and his uncle both had the
satisfaction of seeing the stags they had aimed at, plunge forward
before they had gone many yards farther, and roll over dead. The other
three had each hit the animal they aimed at, but as these kept on their
course they dashed out in pursuit, firing their Colts, which in their
hands were as deadly weapons as a rifle, and the three stags all fell,
although one got nearly half a mile down the valley before he succumbed.
A carcass was hoisted on to each of the horses' backs, and the loaded
animals were then led up the track.
"Shall I wait until the Indians come back, uncle, and tell them why you
have gone up?"
"There is no occasion for that, Tom; they would hear the shots, and will
have guessed what has happened."
The poles were divided among the men and carried up to the top of the
path, and laid down just above the shelter. Harry and Sam Hicks at once
proceeded to cut them up into proper lengths, while the others skinned
and cut up the deer. A number of thongs were cut from one of the hides
for lashing cross-poles across those that were to act as ridge-poles.
The bear's-skin was removed and additional poles placed at that spot,
and all working together the framework of the roof was completed by
nightfall. The Indians had returned soon after the party began their
work, and taking their horses down fetched up the deer they had killed.
In the morning the roof was completed, hides being stretched over the
framework and securely lashed to it with thongs. The whole of the trees
and brushwood were then chopped down close to the ground so as to leave
a level floor. The foliage was given to the horses, and the wood cut up
and piled for fuel. The chief reported that at the upper end of the
valley there was a thick pine-wood, which would give good shelter to the
horses. Near it were plenty of bushes, and a level tract which had been
a beaver meadow, and was thickly covered with grass, as he could see
where the wapiti had scratched away the snow to get at it. This was
excellent news, for the question of how the horses could be fed through
the winter had troubled them much more than that of their own
maintenance. The joints of venison were hung up on a pole outside what
they now called their hut, one or two hams being suspended from the
rafters over the fire, to be smoked.
"We shall have to rig up a b'ar-trap outside," Ben said, "or we shall be
having them here after the meat; and a b'ar's ham now and then will make
a change. Wapiti flesh ain't bad, but we should get dog-goned tired of
it arter a bit."
"You may bet we shall, Ben," Jerry agreed; "but I reckon that we shall
be able to get a lot of game through the winter. That valley down there
is just the place for them to shelter in, and I hope we shall get a
big-horn now and then. It will be a difficult thing to make a b'ar-trap
outside. A grizzly wants a pretty strong pen to keep him in, and though
the horses might drag up some big beams from below, there ain't no
fastening them in this rock."
"No; I don't think we can make that sort of trap," Harry said. "We must
contrive something else. We need not do all our work at once; we have
got plenty of time before us. We want three or four more skins to finish
our hut."
"You mean to fill up the entrance?"
"Yes; we will sew them together, and make a curtain to hang from the
edge of the roof to the ground. I tell you it is going to be mighty cold
here, and besides, it will keep the snow from drifting in."
"I wish to goodness we could make a chimney," Tom said. "The smoke went
up through the leaves all right, but my eyes are watering now, and if
you fill up the end with skins it will be something awful."
"You will get accustomed to it, Tom; but, of course, we must make a hole
at the top when we fill up the entrance. What do you think is the next
thing to be done, chief?"
"Get wood," the chief said emphatically. "Must fill all the end of hut
with wood."
"That will be a big job, chief, but there is no doubt we must lay in a
great store of it. Well, there is plenty of timber down in the valley,
and with ten horses we can bring up a tidy lot every day."
"Let us cut quick before snow comes again."
"We will begin to-morrow morning, chief. I agree with you, the sooner
the better."
Accordingly the next morning they went down to the valley. They had but
two axes, and Jerry and Sam Hicks, who had both done a good deal of
wood-cutting, undertook this portion of the work. The others took the
horses up to the beaver meadow, where they at once began scraping at the
snow, and were soon munching away at the rich grass.
"Why do you call it a beaver meadow, uncle? I don't see any beavers."
"They have gone long ago, perhaps a hundred years. As we know, this
valley is occupied by the Indians in summer, and they would soon clear
out the beavers. But it is called a beaver meadow because it was made by
them. They set to work and dammed up the stream, and gradually all this
flat became a lake. Well, in time, you know, leaves from the woods
above, and soil and dead wood and other things brought down by the
stream, gradually filled up the bottom. Then the beavers were killed,
and their dams went to ruin and the water drained off, and in a short
time grass began to grow. There are hundreds, ay, and thousands of
beaver meadows among the hills, and on the little streams that run into
the big rivers, and nowhere is the grass so rich. You will often see an
Indian village by one of these meadows. They grow their roots and plant
their corn there. The horses will do first-rate here through the winter
if the snow don't get too deep for them, and, anyhow, we can help them
out with a bucket of gruel occasionally."
"It will be awfully cold for them, though."
"It will be coldish, no doubt, but Indian ponies are accustomed to it."
"I should think, uncle, it would not take much trouble to make them a
sort of shed up among the trees there."
Sam laughed, and even the chief smiled.
"It would not be a bad plan, Tom," his uncle said; "not so much for the
sake of the warmth, though there is no doubt that the warmer they are
the less they can do with to eat, but if they have a place to go to they
are less likely to wander away, and we shall not have the trouble of
hunting for them. Well, we will think it over."
Following the valley up, they found that it extended some ten miles
farther, for the last two of which it was but a narrow cañon a few yards
wide. They shot a black bear and four small deer, and returned carrying
the skins, the hind-quarters of the deer, and the bear's hams.
"We seem to have got meat enough for anything," Tom remonstrated when
they shot the deer.
"Seven men will get through a lot of meat, Tom, when they have nothing
else to go with it; and we may be weeks before we can put our heads out
of our hut. Besides, the skins will be useful. We shall want deer-skin
shirts, trousers, and socks and caps; and the skin of these deer is
softer and more pliable than that of the wapiti. I don't want to kill
more than I can help, lad, for I hate taking life without there is a
necessity for it, but we can do with a lot more skins before we are
stocked."
When, driving the horses before them, they returned to the woodcutters,
they found they had cut down and chopped into logs a number of trees;
and Tom was quite astonished at the great pile of firewood that had been
got ready by them in the course of a day's work. The logs were made up
into bundles, each weighing about eighty pounds. These were tied
together with the horses' lariats, and then secured, one on each side of
the saddle, two of the horses carrying the meat. Harry took the bridle
of his horse and started up the path, the others following at once.
"That is a good day's work," Harry said as the logs were piled at the
inner end of the hut. "That is about half a ton of wood. If we have but
a week of open weather we shall have a good store in our cellar."
The work continued steadily for a week. The horses were each day taken
to feed at the meadow, the two wood-choppers continued their work, while
the rest of the party hunted. The Indians had on the second day gone
down the valley, and returned with the report that the Indian lodges had
all disappeared and that the valley was entirely deserted. Eight more
wapiti were killed during the week, and fourteen smaller deer. Of an
evening they occupied themselves in sewing the skins together with
thongs of leather, the holes being made with their knives; and a curtain
at the mouth of the hut was completed and hung. Four wide slabs of wood
had been cut. These had been bound together with thongs so as to form a
sort of chimney four feet high, and with a good deal of difficulty this
was secured by props in its position over a hole cut through the skins,
above the fire.
"The first avalanche will carry it away, Tom."
"Yes, uncle; but we have had one avalanche here, and it seems to me the
chances are strongly against our having another in exactly the same
place."
The skins of the smaller deer were carefully scraped with knives on the
inner side, smeared with bears' fat, and then rubbed and kneaded until
they were perfectly soft.