$oc% Qttounfain T3?otrt>erfanb 



with its mixed and crumbling front, making a 

 most impressive riot of moving matter. Again 

 and again the snowy monster smashed its 

 shoulder into the impregnable farther wall. At 

 last, one hundred feet high and twice as wide, 

 came its impinging, crumbling front. At times 

 the bottom caught and rolled under, leaving 

 the overhanging front to cave and tumble for- 

 ward with snowy splashes. 



This crumbling front was not all snow; oc- 

 casionally an iceberg or a cargo of stones fell 

 forward. With snow flying from it as from a 

 gale-swept, snow-piled summit, this monster 

 of half a million tons roared and thundered by 

 in a sound-burst and reverberation of incom- 

 parable depth and resonance, to plunge into a 

 deeper, steeper rock-walled gorge. It prob- 

 ably was moving thirty-five or forty miles an 

 hour and was gaining in velocity every sec- 

 ond. 



The noise of its passing suppressed the sounds 

 of the slide that started in the gulch above me. 

 Before I could realize it, this slide swept down, 

 and the snow on which I was standing burst up 



92 



