ere gazing
at burst upon officers and men. It came upon them simultaneously, and
with it a wild panic of fear. In the still air a low sullen roar arose.

"An avalanche! An avalanche!!" they cried.

The men and officers were hemmed in by the boiling torrent. Some of
them plunged in to get to the other side, but the moment the water laid
hold of them their heels were whirled into the air, and they
disappeared helplessly down the rapids.

Samson was hours going up the mountain, but only seconds coming down.
Like an overwhelming wave came the white crest of the avalanche,
sweeping officers and men into and over the stream and far across the
plateau.

There was one mingled shriek which made itself heard through the sullen
roar of the snow, then all was silence. The hemmed-in waters rose high
and soon forced its way through the white barrier.

When the remainder of the regiment dug out from the debris the bodies
of their comrades they found a fixed look of the wildest terror on
every face except one. Samson himself, without an unbroken bone in his
body, slept as calmly as if he rested under the blue waters on the
coast of Brittany.

A DEAL ON 'CHANGE

It was in the days when drawing-rooms were dark, and filled with bric-
a-brac. The darkness enabled the half-blinded visitor, coming in out of
the bright light, to knock over gracefully a $200 vase that had come
from Japan to meet disaster in New York.

In a corner of the room was seated, in a deep and luxurious armchair, a
most beautiful woman. She was the wife of the son of the richest man in
America; she was young; her husband was devotedly fond of her; she was
mistress of a palace; anything that money could buy was hers did she
but express the wish; but she was weeping softly, and had just made up
her mind that she was the most miserable creature in all the land.

If a stranger had entered the room he would first have been impressed
by the fact that he was looking at the prettiest woman he had ever
seen; then he would have been haunted by the idea that he had met her
somewhere before. If he were a man moving in artistic circles he might
perhaps remember that he had seen her face looking down at him from
various canvases in picture exhibitions, and unless he were a stranger
to the gossip of the country he could hardly help recollecting the
dreadful fuss the papers made, as if it were any business of theirs,
when young Ed. Druce married the artists' model, c