For one moment Tom beheld the tableau that had his helpless brother for
its central figure.
Then with a hideous roar, like that of an express train rushing at top
speed through a tunnel, the boulder crashed downward and upon the trail.
Like figures that are wiped from a slate the mamelukes vanished, their
lives crushed out in a flash under the huge rock.
“Jack!” shrieked Tom, as he saw.
“Sacre nom!” roared old Joe. “See!”
As the boulder flashed downward, rumbling into the crevasse at the side
of the trail, the sled followed it!
In a small avalanche of snow and loosened shale Tom beheld his brother
being swept over the brink to what appeared certain annihilation.
Tom reeled back against the inner wall of the trail. He felt sick and
dizzy. For some moments he knew nothing. The world swam in a dizzy
merry-go-round before his eyes.
Then he was conscious of somebody plucking at his sleeve. It was old
Joe.
“Courage, mon enfant!” the old man was saying. “Eet may not be zee end.
Wait here. Do not move. I weell go see. Whatever eet ees, I weell tell
you zee truth.”
Tom could say nothing in reply. All he could see or think of was that
terrible picture. The downward rush of the loosened boulder, the sight
of the obliterated mamelukes and then the last glimpse of the sled as,
with Jack clinging helplessly to it, it had plunged over the brink in a
swirl of loosened snow! The injured boy had not even had time to cry out
or to utter a word. He had been carried to his doom in absolute silence.
In fact, the whole thing had happened so quickly that only the horror of
the sight had etched its every detail indelibly upon Tom’s mind.
Old Joe cautiously approached the edge of the crevasse. He did not know
but that there might be a treacherous “lip” of snow overhanging the
brink. In that case, if he went incautiously he might share Jack’s fate.
For, although he had tried to instill courage into Tom, the old trapper
hardly entertained a doubt but that Jack’s dead body lay at the foot of
the precipice.
As he made sure of his ground and then thrust his head over the edge, he
received a joyful shock. Below him, in a deep snow, lay Jack and what
was left of the sled.
Joe’s voice stuck in his throat, but at length he mustered up his
courage and hailed the boy lying beside the crushed and broken sled.
“Hullo! mon ami!”
He paused while his heart beat thickly. And then a yell of joy burst
from his lips.
The figure lying below him moved painfully and the boy waved an arm.
Then, as if the effort had been too much, he collapsed again.
But Joe was jubilant. He sang and shouted his delight and hailed Tom in
stentorian tones.
“He lives! Le garçon, he lives!”
Tom, his face as white as a sheet, came to Joe’s side. Together they
gazed downward at the form of the boy on the snow bank below. It was a
spot where the drifting snow, forced up the narrow canyon by some wild
wind, had been piled within fifty feet of the trail. It was to this fact
undoubtedly that Jack owed his life.
Beside him, and not very far away, was a huge hole in the snow like the
crater of a volcano. It showed where the great boulder had bored its way
into the soft snow with the velocity of a bullet. That hole gave them
some idea of the mighty force that had wiped out the lives of the
mamelukes.
Till the moment that Joe knew that Jack was alive he had given no
thought to his precious dogs. But now he ran toward their mangled bodies
and bent over them, the tears running down his old cheeks and his voice
uplifted in lamentation.
He called to each dead beast by name and dwelt upon its particular
virtues. His grief was so genuine and so heartfelt that Tom, urgent
though the occasion was, yet felt some hesitancy in disturbing him until
some minutes had passed.
Then the boy drew the old trapper’s attention to the necessity of
devising some means of rescuing Jack from the snow bank below the trail.
As Tom addressed him the old man sprang to his feet. The tears still
streamed down his cheeks and his face was working with grief. But he
burst into a flood of self-reproach.
“Ah! I was forget zee enfant, zee brave garçon who lies below. Forgive
me, please. My heart ees veree seeck. I love my malukes lak I love my
children. Now eet ees ovaire. We must work. Afterward I bury my dog. En
avant! Vitement! Courage!”
The old man smote himself upon the chest with each word as if to instill
action and courage into his breast.
“We must have a rope,” he said at length.
“Of course. We can do nothing without one. But where can we obtain one?”
They looked at each other despairingly. Without a rope they could do
nothing. Yet Jack lay there below them, possibly in instant need of
attention, and they were compelled to stand there helpless, unable to
aid him.
It was one of the most trying moments of Tom’s life.