Since Christmas the telescope had rarely been taken from its place on the chimney, and if they looked over into the Cove or the valley without it, those snow-covered regions below were far-off countries, where the houses showed only as rounded forms, and the human ants who lived in them were scarcely visible. CHAPTER XII HOW THE BEAR DISGRACED HIMSELF At last the long winter came to an end. By the middle of March the warm sun and soft south winds began to thaw the February snows. On such a day, when the afternoon sun beat with unusual warmth on the northern face of the mountain, the three soldiers stood together in front of the house, noting everywhere the joyful signs of the approach of spring. The snow, where it lay thickest in the hollows of the plateau, was soft and porous and grimy with dirt. There were bare spaces here and there on the ground, and where a stick or a stone showed through the thin crust the snow had retired around it as if it gave out a heat of its own. The melting icicles pendent from the eaves glittered in the sun and dripped into the channels alongside the walls. They had a great longing to see the grass and the leaves again and welcome the early birds of spring. As they looked about on these hopeful signs in the midst of the great stillness to which they had become used, a sudden deafening crash rang in their startled ears. The sound was like the explosion of a mine or the dull roar of a siege-mortar at a little distance away. It came from the Cove to the north, and the first crash was followed by lesser reports, and each sound was echoed back from the mountains beyond. The first thought of the three soldiers was of the opening of a battle. Their first fear was that a great mass of earth and rock had fallen from the edge of the plateau to the base of the mountain. They made their way cautiously in the direction of the sound, almost distrusting the ground under their feet. The gnarled chestnuts on the edge of the cliff were as firmly rooted as ever. When they had advanced to where Philip's sharp eyes caught the first view of the postmaster's cabin through the twisted tree-trunks, he remembered the words of Andy, the guide, on the night when they had waited for the moon to go down. He quickly caught the arms of his companions. "It's the avalanche," he said--"the icicles and the ice falling into the Cove from the face of the great boulder." They could see tiny figures standing about the cabin, and they shrank back lest they, too, might be seen by the people, who were evidently gazing with all their eyes at the top of the mountain. Just then there was another deafening crash, and at intervals all day long they heard the falling of the ice. "They are the opening guns of spring," said Lieutenant Coleman; and now that they knew what the sound was, they listened eagerly for each report.