Lon cracked his whip close to the ear of the off leader. It might almost have been a signal. From far above came the sound of an answering crack. Reed looked up quickly. The snow comb slid forward, broke, and came tearing down. It gathered momentum in its plunge, roaring down like an express train. The cowman flung Betty into the bed of the sled and crouched over her as a protection against the white cloud of death rushing at them. The avalanche swept into the ravine with thunderous noise, a hundred tons of packed snow. The bulk of its weight struck in front of the horses, but the tail of the slide whipped a giant billow upon them and buried team and sled. Betty fought and scrambled her way out of the snow. From it her father’s head was emerging a few yards away. “Hurt?” he asked. “No. You?” “Jarred up. That’s all. Seen anything of Lon?” The head and broad shoulders of the foreman pushed up. Lon shook snow out of his hair, eyes, and ears. The others exchanged bulletins with him. He was, he said, as rampageous as a long-legged hill two-year-old. “Mr. Hollister!” Betty quavered. The engineer was nowhere to be seen. They called, and no answer came. Betty’s heart dropped like a plummet. She turned upon her father anguished eyes. They begged him to do something. He noticed that her cheeks were blanched, the color had ebbed from her lips. His daughter’s distress touched him nearly. He could not stand that stricken look. “I’ll find him,” he promised. Jammed between two trees, upside down, with one end sticking out of the snow, they found the wagon bed at the bottom of the ravine. Forbes spoke to Reed in a low voice, for his ears alone. “Not a chance in fifty of findin’ him in all this snow, an’ if we do, he’ll not be alive.” “Yes,” agreed the ranchman. “If a fellow knew where to look. But no telling where the snow carried him.” “Might still be under the wagon bed, o’ course.” “Might be.” A low groan reached them. They listened. It came again, from under the bed of the wagon apparently. “He’s alive,” Clint called to Betty. The drooping little figure crouched in the snow straightened as though an electric current had been shot through it. The girl waded toward them, eager, animate with vigor, pulsing with hope. “Oh, Dad. Let’s hurry. Let’s get him out.” Reed rapped the wagon bed with his knuckles. “How about it, Hollister? Hurt much?” “Knocked out,” a weak voice answered. “Guess I’m all right now. Arm scraped a bit.” The handle of a shovel stuck out of the snow like a post. Lon worked it loose, tore the lower part free, and brought it to the bed. He began to dig. Reed joined him, using his leather gauntlets as spades. It took nearly half an hour to get Hollister out. He came up smiling. “Cold berth down there,” he said by way of comment. “You’re not really hurt, are you?” Betty said. “Nothing to speak of. The edge of the sled scraped the skin from my arm. Feels a bit fiery. How about the horses?”