The boys found that the going became more difficult as one hour, and then two hours crept past. Still Lanky seemed to be growing more and more confident. "Let me tell you, Frank!" he said later on. "Right now I firmly believe we're a whole lot closer to Lost Mountain than dad has ever been in three days' search. Why, any one of the several big humps we've run across might turn out to be the seat of Kinney's find." "But, somehow," interjected Frank, who had been gazing anxiously heavenward, "I don't like the looks of the sky with all those black wind clouds scudding up so fast. We are bound to get some kind of a gale before a great while." "Shucks! it may be only a wind storm," jeered Lanky. "Maybe. But a wind storm can do as much harm sometimes as anything on this earth." Five minutes afterwards an ominous roaring sound that chilled the blood in their veins came to their ears. The roaring grew in depth and intensity. CHAPTER XX THE AVALANCHE "What's coming down on us, Frank?" Lanky called out in a voice filled with apprehension, as the roaring sound rapidly grew more and more terrible. "I don't know," came the reply. "Something we've never run up against before, I take it!" "An earthquake?" "Hardly that, Lanky. So far we haven't felt any movement to the mountain here. That wind, though, is whipping things something fierce. See that big branch of a cedar tree going off like a balloon! It's more like a cyclone than anything else, but I never heard of them in a mountain district." "Grab hold of something!" bellowed Lanky, alarmed by the growing darkness and the wild clamor. "Did you ever see such a country for big things happening--first a cloudburst, and now--this whooper of a tornado!" "I'm bothered most about something else," admitted Frank, though he had to say it in the ear of his chum to make himself heard. "What is it, Frank?" "A landslide!" came back, to make Lanky shiver afresh. "Great Cæsar's ghost! do you reckon we're going to be caught by a slip of the mountain side, Frank?" "I hope not, Lanky. But we're unfortunate to be in the path of that kind of turnover." "Humph, I always said I'd be willing to try anything _once_," Lanky admitted, as if in contrition. "But say, I draw the line at getting in the path of a slide that could bury a whole town like Columbia. Frank, can't we do something to better our chances?" "How?" demanded the other, a bit confused himself. "Run for second base, and slide!" bellowed Lanky, who used this figurative language without intending any levity in the least, but because it came handiest to the tongue of a baseball enthusiast. "If we only knew where the old thing was apt to come whooping down, Lanky, we might take a chance. But for all we can tell, it's as safe right here as anywhere else." "Guess that's so," agreed the distressed Lanky. "But, shucks, it's hard lines to just hang around and wait to see whether you stick or get a free ride atop an avalanche!"