He looked back, and his
face was as pale as death. He waved his hands above him, and then
shouting for the others to follow, he whipped up his horse furiously.
The animal plunged into the snow, and tossed and floundered and made a
rush onward.
But the other drivers held back, and, instead of following, shouted to
the first driver to stop, and cried to the passengers to hold on. Not
a cry of fear escaped from any one of the ladies. All did as they were
directed, and grasped the stakes of their sleds, looking up at the
slope with white lips, and expectation of horror in their eyes,
watching for the avalanche.
And down it came, a vast mass of snow and ice--down it came,
irresistibly, tremendously, with a force that nothing could withstand.
All eyes watched its progress in the silence of utter and helpless
terror. It came. It struck. All the sleds in the rear escaped, but
Minnie's sled lay in the course of the falling mass. The driver had
madly rushed into the very midst of the danger which he sought to
avoid. A scream from Minnie and a cry of despair from the driver burst
upon the ears of the horrified listeners, and the sled that bore them,
buried in the snow, went over the edge of the slope, and downward to
the abyss.
CHAPTER II.
THE PERILOUS DESCENT.
The shriek of Minnie and the driver's cry of despair were both stopped
abruptly by the rush of snow, and were smothered in the heap under
which they were buried. The whole party stood paralyzed, gazing
stupidly downward where the avalanche was hurrying on to the abyss,
bearing with it the ill-fated Minnie.
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