the little party had encamped in a hollow in the prairie, where, after eating their sparse lunch, they lolled on the ground, the men smoking their pipes, while their animals cropped the grass before lying down for the rest which they needed as much as their owners.
“yes,” said eph bozeman, after the conversation had lasted a half hour, and took the form of reminiscences on the part of the adults, “i war eighteen years old when i went on my first trappin’ hunt with my old friend kit carson, and there war three trappers beside us. i war younger in them days than now, and i don’t quite understand how kit come to let me do one of the foolishest things a younker of my age ever tried.
“it war in the fall of the year that we five went away up in the wild river mountain,[214] meanin’ to stay thar till spring. kit had been in the same region a few years before, but he said no trap had ever been set in the place, and we was sure of makin’ a good haul before the winter war over. it was november, and we went to work at once. we were purty well north, and so high up that i don’t think warm weather ever strikes the place.
“we had good luck from the start, and by the time snow began to fly had stowed away in the cave we fixed up for our winter quarters more peltries than kit had took the whole season before. that was good; but when we begun to figure up how much money we war going to have to divide down at bent’s fort, after the winter war over, from the sale of the furs, kit shook his head and said the season warn’t ended yet.
“since we war sure of having ugly weather we had got ready for it. the luggage that war strapped to the back of our pack mules had a pair of snow-shoes for each of us, and we all knowed how to use ‘em.
“the first snow-fall come in the beginnin’ of december, but it didn’t amount to much.[215] howsumever, we catched it the next week, heavy. it begun comin’ down one afternoon just as it war growin’ dark. it war thin and sand-like, and when it hit our faces stung like needle p’ints. carson went outside, and after studyin’ the sky as best he could, when he couldn’t see it at all, said it war goin’ to be the storm of the winter.
“he war right, as he generally war in such matters. when mornin’ come it war snowin’ harder than ever, and it never let up for four days and nights. then when it stopped the fall war mor’n a dozen feet in the mountains. this settled like, and a crust formed on top, which war just the thing for our snow-shoes. on the steep inclines you’ve only to brace yourself and let the law of gravertation, as i b’lieve they call it, do the rest.
“it war powerful lonely in our cave day after day, with nothing to do but to talk and smoke and sleep, and now and then steal out to see if the mules war safely housed. it got so bad after a while that we all put on our snow-shoes and started out for a little fun.
“about a mile off we struck a gulch which[216] we had all seen many times. it war the steepest that we knowed of within fifty miles. from the top to whar it broadened out into a valley war three-quarters of a mile, and all the way war like the roof of a house. i s’pose it war a little more than a hundred yards wide at the top, whar the upper part of the biggest kind of an avalanche had formed. there the wind and odd shape of the rocks and ground had filled the place with snow that war deeper than the tallest meetin’-house you ever laid eyes on. it had drifted and piled, reachin’ far back till it war a snow mountain of itself. don’t you forget, too,” added the trapper impressively, “that this snow warn’t loose drift stuff, but a solid mass that, when it once started, would go down that gulch like so much rock, if you can think of a rock as big as that.
“we war standin’ and lookin’ at this mountain of snow, wonderin’ how long it would be before it would swing loose and plunge into the valley below, when a fool feelin’ come over me. i turned to kit and the other fellers and offered to bet a beaver skin[217] that i could start even with the avalanche and beat it down into the valley. carson wouldn’t take the bet, for he saw what rashness it war. yet he didn’t try to dissuade me, and the other chaps took me up right off. the idea got into my head that carson thought i war afraid, and then nothin’ could have held me back.
“it didn’t take us long to get things ready. one of the trappers went with me to see that the start war all right, while kit and the other picked thar way to the valley below, so as to have a sight of the home stretch.
“it took us a good while, and we had to work hard to make our way to the foot of the avalanche. when we got thar at last and i looked up at that mountain of snow ready to tumble right over onto me, i don’t mind sayin’ i did feel weak in the knees; but i wouldn’t have backed out if i knowed thar war only one chance in a million of my ever livin’ to tell it.
“the chap with me said if i wanted to give it up it would be all right—he told me afterward that he war sorry he had took my bet—but i laughed, and told him it war a go.
[218]
“he helped me fix my snow-shoes, and wouldn’t let me start till he seen everything war right. then i stood on the edge of the gulch and held myself still by graspin’ the corner of the rock behind me. he climbed above, so he could peep over and see me. he said i war so far below that i looked like a fly, and i know that he didn’t look much bigger than that to me. it took him so long to climb to the perch that my hand was beginnin’ to grow numb, when i heard his voice, faint and distant-like:
“‘hello, eph, down thar! are you ready?’
“‘yes, and tired of waitin’,’ i answered.
“‘one—two—three!’
“as he said the last word, and it was so faint that i could hardly hear him, him and me fired our pistols at the same time, as you sometimes see at a foot race, though thar they ginerally have but the one pistol.
“you understand how it was,” added the trapper for the benefit of herbert watrous: “them shots war fur the avalanche. bein’ as we war startin’ on a foot race, it war right[219] that we should have a fair start, and the only way of doin’ that was by settin’ off some gunpowder. if the avalanche was hangin’, as it seemed to be, the shakin’ of the air made by our pistols would set it loose and start it down the valley after me. but onless it war balanced just that way the broadside of a frigate wouldn’t budge it.
“howsumever, that war the lookout of the avalanche and not mine, but, bein’ as i meant it should be fair and square, i waited after firin’ my pistol, lookin’ and listenin’. i didn’t mean to start in ahead of the thing, nor did i mean it should get the best of me. as like as not it wouldn’t budge, and then of course the race war off.
“for a second or two i couldn’t hear nothin’ but the moanin’ of the wind away up where the other feller had climbed. then i heard a sound like the risin’ of a big storm. it war low and faint at first, but it quickly growed into the most awful roar mortal man ever heard. just then my friend shouted:
“‘here she comes! off with you!’
“i give myself a shove out over the top[220] of the snow, curvin’ about, so that when i reached the middle of the gulch i started downward. in that second or two i seen the whole avalanche under way, hardly a hundred yards off, and it war comin’ for me like a railroad train, and goin’ faster every second.
“you can make up your mind that i war doin’ some tall travellin’ myself.
“whew! boys, i can’t tell you much about that race. the avalanche didn’t flatten out and shoot down the gorge in loose masses, as i’ve seen ‘em do, but just stuck together and come like one solid half of the mountain itself.
“if it catched me i was a goner just as sure as if run down by a steam-engine. but you would think thar couldn’t be any chance of it catchin’ me, ’cause it war gravertation that was pullin’ us both, and one oughter go as fast as t’other. the only thing i had to do was to keep my feet and stay in the middle of the gorge. if i catched one of my toes in the snow crust i would tumble, and before i could help myself the avalanche would squelch me.
“i can never forget, but i can’t tell how i felt goin’ down that three-quarters of a mile[221] like a cannon ball. the wind cut my face as if it war a harrycane, and everything was so misty like i couldn’t see anything plain, and so i war in mortal fear of turnin’ out of the course and hittin’ the side of the gulch.
“i don’t know how it war, but once i felt myself goin’ over. i s’pose i must have got out of line and tried to get back without exactly knowin’ what i war doin’. kit carson, who war watchin’ me, said i went two hundred feet balanced on one snow-shoe. he then give me up, for he war sure thar warn’t a shadder of a chance for me.
“but i swung back agin, and, keepin’ to the middle of the gulch, soon struck the level, and went skimmin’ away as fast as ever till i begun goin’ up the incline on t’other side. i war doin’ that in fine style when the p’int of one of my shoes dipped under the snow crust, and i know i turned a round dozen summersets before i stopped. it sort of mixed things in my brain, but the snow saved me from gettin’ hurt, and though the avalanche come powerful close, it didn’t quite reach me, and i won my beaver skin.”
