elled by a giant trowel; hushed,
preternaturally hushed, the Ranger thought as he came up abreast and
glanced to the top of the long slope where the snows glistened over the
edge of the rocks heavy and white.

"This is what we heard last night! See, Wayland, the snow up there has
been breakin'! It sags! Got its fore feet forward for a race down one
of these days!"

Both men became aware of something portentous and heavy in the silence:
it was mid-day; but there was no noon-time shout of disimprisoned waters.
Not a crossbill, not a jay, neither eagle nor hawk, showed against the
azure fields of sky and snow. A little riffle as of waiting fluttered
through the grasses and leaves. Wayland was looking with dumb amazement
at the great field of laurel in bloom across the slope; three or four
miles of it, leaves of green wax in the sun, flowers passion pale,
motionless, waiting; what was it he missed? The insect life; there were
neither butterflies nor bees rifling the fields of honey bloom; the
flowers, acres and acres of them, stood passion pale, motionless
waiting--waiting what? Then, there was a singing in his ears, a weird
strange undertone to the hush of the forest behind them. His breath came
heavy. The old man was speaking in a muffled voice.

"See, boy, there are three men on the other side! They are signalling."

Wayland came alive out of his strange trance.

"It isn't to us they are signalling. Move back quick, out of sight, sir;
see! there's a man half way across, the fellow in the yellow slicker!
There's some one on foot holding him in his saddle! What ever are they
waving so frantically for?"

Involuntarily, both men had wheeled the ponies back in the screen of
trees, when the old man cried out: "What in blazes ails your mule?"

The little animal had jumped sideways.

"Get back, quick! for God's sake, Wayland! A know the signs from the
Canadian Rockies. It isn't _us_ they are signalling. It's the snow;
it's coming, Wayland!"

The words were smothered by a tremor grinding through the hollow hush.
There was a split, a splintering, a dull boom of titanic weight falling,
miles away. They saw the puff of snow dust fly up in a toss of mist over
the face of the distant upper crags. Then, a grinding tore the earth;
something white glistening viscous crumpled--coiled with untellable
furious speed, shaggy and formless, out from the upper peaks--coiled and
writhed out like a giant python in titani