rock which sheltered the old camp, breaking a big piece off it, and shot
on with mighty impetus down the mountain.

An avalanche of loose earth, stones, and bushes, brought down by this
battering-ram of the landslide, piled themselves upon the log hut,
smashing to kindling-wood its walls, which had stood many a hard storm,
burying them out of sight, and flinging wide showers of dust and small
missiles.

A scattered rain of clay caught Herb upon the head, and lodged, some of
it, on the little pack containing axe and lunch which was strapped upon
his shoulders.

He shook. His grip loosened. The limp, dragging body in his arms sank
until the feet touched the earth.

But with the supreme effort, moral and physical, of his life, the forest
guide gathered it tight again.

"I'll be blowed if I'll drop him now," he gasped. "He ain't nothing but
a bag o' bones, anyhow."

Only a strong man in the hour of his best strength could have done it.
With a defiant snort Herb charged through the choking dust-clouds,
pelted by flying pebbles, sods, and fragments of sticks.

"This way, boys!" he roared, after five straining, staggering minutes,
as he caught a glimpse of his comrades ahead, tearing off to the right,
as he had bidden them. "You may let up now. We're safe enough."

They faced back, and saw him make a few reeling, descending steps, then
lay what now seemed to be an out-and-out lifeless man on a bed of moss
beneath a dwarfed spruce.

The nerves of the three were in a jumping condition, their brains felt
befuddled, and their hearts sinking and melting in the midst of their
bones, from the astounding shock and terror of the land-slide. But, as
they beheld the guide deposit his burden, with its helplessly trailing
head and limbs, a cheer in unsteady tones rang above the slackening
rattle of earth and stones, and the far-away boom of the granite-block
as it buried itself in the forest beneath.

"Hurrah! for you, Herb, old boy," yelled Cyrus triumphantly. "That was
the grittiest thing I ever saw done' Hurrah! Hurrah! Hoo-ray!"

The English boys, open-throated, swelled the peal.

But their cheering broke off as they came near, and saw the mask-like
face over which Herb bent.

"Is he gone, poor fellow?" asked Garst. "What do you suppose caused
it--the slide?"

"Why, it was a thundering big lump of granite from the top o' the
mountain," answered Herb, replying to the second question. "That plaguy
heavy rain must ha' lo