meant, both Bill
and father would have been lost. But Mike threw out a rope that father
caught and quickly wound about himself, while Bill clutched on to
father's legs. Thus Mike dragged them up to the tree where he had bound
himself. The horses are gone!"

Mrs. Brewster seemed overcome at the recital of the awful ordeal the men
had passed through, but Polly said encouragingly:

"Don't take on so, mother! 'All's well that ends well' and father and
Bill are safe, you know."

"Oh, but this isn't all, Polly! Mike says when Grizzly starts an
avalanche like that first one, the very force of its tearing away keeps
on breaking away the ice-fields all around the peak. Another slide may
come at any moment and pour down this side, you see. The men who had
taken care of the horses when the others were fighting the fire were
left stationed at the timber-line to watch. If they notice the faintest
sign of another serious break on the peak, they are to signal a lookout
left on the crest of this slope. And they in turn must warn Bill's son
who was left sitting on top of this ledge. That is where Simms and Mike
have gone now. There must have been a signal from Bill's boy to Simms."

Mrs. Brewster looked at her daughter to see if she could bear the rest
of the story. Finding Polly as calm as she herself was, she continued:

"Father said the experience Simms and he went through was mere child's
play to what it might be should Grizzly loosen up and send down a slide
on this side of the peak. Of course, the fire and smoke added to the
horror on the other side, but the actual avalanche was not as tremendous
because the slope was partly protected by the abrupt drop of thousands
of feet from the peak to the valley, down which the greater flood must
have rushed.

"This side is on the direct down-slope from the peak, with nothing to
break a snow-slide, or to carry off the bulk of the debris.

"This morning, when I rode up with Simms' party, we met two old trappers
who were coming down. They had passed Old Grizzly Slide yesterday, and
they said there must have been an awful thaw going on under the
surface-ice of the Slide, as the yawning chasm where you discovered the
crevice the other day was frightful. It made even their courageous
spirits tremble at sight of it. But they turned again and rode up with
us, as they said they could be useful to Bill. They are up on Top Notch
now, scouting for the first symptoms of a slide."

Polly turned