ping icicles at the eaves. All day I went
noiselessly about the cabin, letting Buchan sleep. A premonition of
impending danger crept over me. I tried to throw off the dread feeling
by reading, but I could not concentrate my thoughts on the pages of
the book. Strange thoughts came like they did to the man who was being
taken to the guillotine and begged time of his captors to put his
thoughts on paper. I thought I would write mine that day, or remember
them at least, but I cannot recall them. I only know they were strange
and fascinating, as if I was living another life, on another planet.

I brought in wood and water for the night. The sound of the door
slamming awoke Buchan. He arose and sat by the fire, which blazed up
brightly from its fresh supply of pine logs.

"Better, I see," I observed, "but heavens you were locoed this
morning! talking about the resurrection, the quaking earth, and the
dead rolling out from their graves!"

"All true," he said, quietly. "I have seen those things, and what has
happened once may happen again."

I was standing by the window, looking out over the snow covered San
Luis valley, when even as he spoke I felt the ground tremble. There
was a rush of air and the cabin became filled with a fine snow that
was stifling, then a thunderous roar, and all was utter darkness.

I was choking with the snow particles. I groped to the door and opened
it and felt a solid bank of snow.

I realized then that we were buried beneath a snow slide.

We worked for hours, in silence and darkness, digging our way through
the snow and shoveling it back into the cabin as we tunneled toward
the cliff. It was early morning when we saw the light of day.

Once in the open where we could breathe the pure air we beheld a sight
that would appall the strongest heart. The great flat rock, that had
stood on edge at the back of the cabin, was now slanting at a sharp
angle above our heads. The avalanche from near the summit of the
Sangre de Christo had struck the cliff and with its incalculable tons
tilted it, piling itself hundreds of feet in the depth about us. The
cliff might fall at any moment and blot us out of existence.

Reaching a point of sight near the open space at the edge of the base
of the cliff we could see something of the awful havoc wrought by the
avalanche. Huge rocks had been loosened from their foundations and
with the speed of a meteor dashed to the valley below. Great pines one
hundred feet i