The glance revealed nothing unusual, the enormous extent of slope looking as if it were motionless, but a second look told the truth. A grove of pines at the base of the range were suddenly snuffed out. This was because they disappeared under the prodigious mass of snow and ice that swept over them. Then a dark, irregular line, running right and left, and roughly parallel with the crest of the range, came into view. It was an eighth of a mile in length and the narrow width rapidly increased until there was a rent or yawn of several hundred feet, zigzagging from one side to the other. The dark color of this chasm was due to rocks and ground, and marked the break between the two sections or divisions of the avalanche. The upper portion caught and held, while the remainder swept downward without check. Thus a huge gap was opened, through which the brown earth and stones showed. The next strange sight was that of boulders, some of them weighing many tons, flung high in air and tossed about like so many corks. One might have thought that Titans were disporting themselves as did the fabled gods on Mount Olympus. As the inconceivable mountain of snow crashed onward it spread out at the base of the range, and finally settled to rest. Had an ordinary town been in its path it would have been buried to the tops of the highest steeples. Nearly all this had taken place before the three spectators heard the deep, thunderous roar that rolled across the space and told of the stupendous mass that had been loosened by the undermining rays of the sun or by some trifling disturbance of the atmosphere. "If we should be caught in anything like that," said Victor, "it would take us a good while to dig out." "My brothers might _never_ dig out," said Deerfoot. "What is there to hinder?" "There are many stones and rocks and boulders tumbling about in the snow, and they would be likely to kill us." "Then, Deerfoot, you must keep your eyes open for avalanches. It would be pretty hard for the horses, though Zigzag has sort of got used to it." Little need for warning the Shawanoe of his duty. That was what he had been attending to all his life. He had never placed himself and friends in the way of an impending avalanche. Recalling their course since leaving the village, the brothers understood better than before the cause of more than one tortuous winding by their guide, when they had been unable to guess the reason for such quixotic turns that did not lessen the labor of traveling itself.