There was more snow on this side, and to travel through
it he soon found that he must put on the snowshoes
again; but after that the descent was actually restful
compared with the labors of the climb. Yonder
was the dark streak of the timberline again. Far
down the valley he watched it curving in and out along
the mountainside like a water level. Below was
the darkness of the forest where other things lived,
and where Bull could live more easily, also. Never
had trees seemed such beautiful and friendly things
to him.
Once a thought stopped him completely. He was
in a new world. He was seeing everything for
the first time. On other days he had gone out
with others. Under their guidance, not trusted
to undertake an expedition by himself, he looked at
nothing until it was pointed out to him, heard nothing
that was not first called to his attention. He
had always wondered at the acuteness of the senses
of all other men. But now, looking on the mountains
for himself, he decided, with a start of the heart,
that they were beautiful—beautiful and terrible
at once, with the reality that he had never found in
his books. What leveled spear of a knight, in
the pages of romance, could equal the invisible thrust
of this wind?
He reached the timberline. Looking back, he saw
the summit, a brilliant line of white against a blue
sky. Again the heart of Bull Hunter leaped.
Here was a great treasure that he had taken in with
one grasp of the eyes and which he could never lose!
He turned down the valley. Where it swerved out
into the lower plain, stood Johnstown, and there he
was to cross the flight of Pete Reeve, if Pete were
indeed flying. But it was incredible that the
man who had struck down Uncle Bill Campbell should
flee from any man or number of men.
He had reached the bottom of the narrow valley.
A dull noise came down to him from the mountain in
the lull of the wind. He looked up.
Far away, miles and miles, near the summit of Scalped
Mountain, a snaky form of mist was twisting swiftly
down. He looked curiously. The thing grew,
traveling with great speed that increased with every
moment. It increased—it gained velocity—a
snowslide!
He watched it in doubt. It was twisting like
a snake down the farther side of the mountain, but,
in his experience, slides were as treacherous as serpents.
Bull started hastily for a low cliff that stood up
from the floor of the valley, clear of the trees.
He had not gone far when the wind fell away to a whisper,
and a dull roaring caught his ear. He looked
back over his shoulder in alarm. A great wall
of white was shooting down the mountainside. The
little slide of surface snow, which had twisted across
the surface of the old snows of the winter, had been
gaining in weight, in momentum, picking up claws of
shrubbery, teeth of stone, and eating through layer
after layer of the old snow, packed hard as ice.
Now it was a roaring mass with a front steadily increasing
in height, and far away in the rear it tossed up a
tail of snow dust, a flying mist that gave Bull an
impression of speed greater than the main wall of the
snow itself.
