There was a wind, but it was not the roaring blast that so frequently
snarled through St. Bernard Pass and it had not tumbled the snow about
enough to cover the ski trail left by Father Benjamin and Jean Greb. It
was a safe path, for two men had already traveled it in safety. Rather
than having to choose carefully a slow and uncertain way, the four could
now move swiftly.
Followed only by Caesar, who found the going easy on a path packed by so
many skis, Franz stayed just far enough behind Anton Martek to avoid
running up on the toboggan the giant pulled. Father Benjamin led the
way, followed by Father Mark. There were ropes and shovels on the
toboggan.
Franz tried to swallow his heart that insisted on beating in his throat,
rather than in his chest. An avalanche was as unpredictable as the
chatter of a jay. For all his vast experience in the mountains, Jean
Greb had not known this one was coming until it overwhelmed both himself
and Professor Luttman. No one could ever be sure.
Franz tried to reassure himself by thinking of the three men ahead of
him. All were not only men of the mountains in general, but of St.
Bernard Pass in particular. There was no situation that could arise in
the Pass which they had not met before and with which they would not
know how to cope, Franz told himself. They were very sure of finding
Professor Luttman.
But in his own heart, Franz knew how very wrong he could be.
An avalanche was a freakish thing. When tons, and millions of tons, of
snow thundered down a slope, it was somewhat comparable to a treacherous
river. There were currents that surged toward the top and those that
bored toward the bottom. Even though Jean Greb had been cast out on top,
Professor Luttman might be lying at the bottom. For all their ability
to work miracles, the men of St. Bernard Hospice would never reach him
alive if he were. They would never even find him.
Franz tried to banish such gloomy forebodings from his mind and might
have succeeded had not one thought persisted. If Father Benjamin
believed there was a good chance of finding Professor Luttman, he would
have made Jean Greb as comfortable as possible and tried to find him.
And in the refectory, while Jean lay unconscious, Father Benjamin
himself had said that there was no hope.
Franz thrust a hand behind him and felt a little relieved when Caesar
came up to sniff it. He was by no means sure that Caesar could find
Professor Luttman, but he was positive that they stood a far better
chance with the big mastiff than they ever would without him. He tried
to picture in his imagination all the places where the avalanche might
have occurred--and gasped with dismay when they finally found it!
The prevailing west wind funneled through a broad gulley. On the east,
the gulley was bounded by a gentle slope. But on the west, the slope
rose sheer for almost half its height before giving way to an easy rise.
The wind had plastered snow against the steep portion. More snow, either
wind-borne or falling, had gathered upon it to a depth of twenty feet
or more.
It was a much greater burden than the slope should have held. With
almost a perpendicular wall, and not a single tree or bush to hold it
back, a whisper might set it off and send snow roaring into the gulley.
It was a death trap that any experienced mountaineer would recognize at
a glance.
Jean Greb, seeing the peril, had chosen to climb above the steep portion
on the west slope, rather than veer to the east. It was a choice any
mountaineer might have made. But something, possibly the light ski tread
of Jean Greb and Professor Luttman, had started the snow on the steep
wall rolling. This, in turn, had set off an avalanche on the gentle
slope and all of it had poured into the gulley.
In the center of the gulley, snow lay a hundred feet deep. On the north
end, where the cleavage between the snow that had rolled and that which
had not rolled was almost as sharp as though some colossus had cut it
with a knife, there was a near-perpendicular drop that varied between
sixty and ninety feet in height. The tremendous force of the avalanche
had packed the snow to icy hardness.
Father Benjamin halted, waved his arm and said, "I found your friend
here, Franz. He was trying to dig into the snow."
Franz stared with unbelieving eyes at the faint scars in the immense
pile of snow. They could have been made only by a ski pole, but a ski
pole was the only tool Jean had. Franz knew suddenly that Father
Benjamin had been entirely right in bringing Jean to the Hospice. A
hundred men with a hundred shovels could not move that mass of snow in a
hundred years. It was better to save the man who could be saved than to
let him senselessly risk his life for the man who could not.
"You found him here?" Anton Martek asked.
Father Benjamin answered, "This is where the avalanche cast him up.
Since he and his companion were traveling very close together, he is
sure that his friend cannot be far from this place."