And in this position the catastrophe caught him. In his dancing around and stabbing the shifting sand with his wooden leg he started an avalanche. Carolyn May was the first to see the slide coming and she screamed: "Oh! Come away, Princey, quick! You'll be drownd-ed in the sand!" Several tons of the hill started slowly, and then with a _swish_ like the sound of the surf, spread out and surrounded the struggling cockatoo man. It buried him to his waist. Prince was fairly barking his head off. The little girls, quite out of the line of the avalanche, could only dance up and down and squeal. At this tragic juncture even the explosive ejaculation of "Dancing Doolittles!" failed to relieve the feelings of Mr. Oly Littlefield. CHAPTER XXIII INTO MISCHIEF AND OUT The cockatoo looking man, as Carolyn May often called Mr. Oly Littlefield, was for once stricken dumb, as well as helpless. His hat had flown off his head and followed his cane, the basket, the groceries, and the bouncing lemons down the hill. But he was stuck right where he had landed in the sand and the avalanche was piling up around him. He sat in such a position, with his left leg completely buried and his right drawn up, that he could not of his own strength drag his body out of the sand. He might just as well have tried to lift himself out by his bootstraps! The old fellow's face was really growing pale. The situation was not laughable in the least to him. And as far as the children were concerned, they were very much frightened. The sand was still sliding down all about him, and he was slowly being buried, deeper and deeper. He could not see anybody to help him, for from this angle of the hill no dwelling was in sight. At Dorris Cove were two fish houses, and he could see their roofs, and the dories drawn well up on the shore. The poundmen, however, had drawn the traps long since and gone home. Aside from the two little girls and the dog, Mr. Oly Littlefield was alone. "In the name o' the Dancin' Doolittles!" he groaned. "I'm complete' swamped here and no two ways about it. How'm I ever goin' to get out?" It did look as though his chance for escape was very slim. The sands kept running down, and the more he struggled the deeper he seemed to slide--just as though he were in a quicksand. "What ever shall we do?" cried Edna. "Oh, Carolyn, he's going to be all buried up!" "He mustn't! He mustn't!" shrieked Carolyn quite as loudly, and she ran toward the half-entombed man. Her light feet did not greatly disturb the sliding sand. Besides, she addressed herself to the cockatoo man from the side of the path where the hill had not fallen. Edna followed her friend's example, and both little girls seized upon his right hand and dragged at him, while he fought with his left to loosen his body from the engulfing sand.