The road was far beneath them.  The drivers had informed them that it was forty feet deep at the top of the pass, and that its depth here was over thirty.  Long poles which were inserted in the snow projected above its surface, and served to mark where the road ran.

Here, then, they drove along, feeling wearied with the length of the way, impatient at the slowness of their progress, and eager to reach their journey’s end.  But little was said.  All had talked till all were tired out.  Even Minnie Fay, who at first had evinced great enthusiasm on finding herself leading the way, and had kept turning back constantly to address remarks to her friends, had at length subsided, and had rolled herself up more closely in her furs, and heaped the straw higher about her little feet.

Suddenly, before them, and above them, and behind them, and all around them, there arose a deep, low, dull, rushing sound, which seemed as if all the snow on the slope was moving.  Their ears had by this time become sufficiently well acquainted with the peculiar sound of the rushing snow-masses to know that this was the noise that heralded their progress, and to feel sure that this was an avalanche of no common size.  Yes, this was an avalanche, and every one heard it:  but no one could tell where it was moving, or whether it was near or far, or whether it was before or behind.  They only knew that it was somewhere along the slope which they were traversing.

A warning cry came from the foremost driver.  He looked back, and his face was as pale as death.  He waved his hands above him, and then shouting for the others to follow, he whipped up his horse furiously.  The animal plunged into the snow, and tossed and floundered and made a rush onward.

But the other drivers held back, and, instead of following, shouted to the first driver to stop, and cried to the passengers to hold on.  Not a cry of fear escaped from any one of the ladies.  All did as they were directed, and grasped the stakes of their sleds, looking up at the slope with white lips, and expectation of horror in their eyes, watching for the avalanche.

And down it came, a vast mass of snow and ice—­down it came, irresistibly, tremendously, with a force that nothing could withstand.  All eyes watched its progress in the silence of utter and helpless terror.  It came.  It struck.  All the sleds in the rear escaped, but Minnie’s sled lay in the course of the falling mass.  The driver had madly rushed into the very midst of the danger which he sought to avoid.  A scream from Minnie and a cry of despair from the driver burst upon the ears of the horrified listeners, and the sled that bore them, buried in the snow, went over the edge of the slope, and downward to the abyss.

CHAPTER II.

THE PERILOUS DESCENT.