THE WHITE CYCLONE 121 



A part of the slide mass ran on and smashed down 

 through the forest, breaking off or tearing out by 

 the roots every tree in its course. Its path was 

 narrow, about one hundred feet. But over this 

 width it ran through the forest for about seven 

 hundred feet with apparently unchecked speed. 

 At the end of this stretch it plunged into a rocky 

 canon, nearly filling it with spruce pulp, splinters, 

 cordwood, earthy, convulsed snow, and shattered 

 stones. 



There were more than two hundred annual rings 

 in the trees wrecked here, showing that there had 

 not been a slide at this place for two hundred years. 



In looking over the debris at the bottom of the 

 precipice I came upon the body of a grizzly bear, 

 badly crushed. Apparently this bear had been 

 torn from his shallow hibernating cave somewhere 

 in the track of the slide, probably a short distance 

 above timberline. Careful search failed to reveal 

 the body of a sheep; still there may have been a 

 number of carcasses beneath the smashed trees 

 and wreckage. 



How quickly all this had happened! I had 

 heard the crash, boom, and rumble and the riot of 

 echoes, and then had seen a surprised snowfield 

 suddenly awakened and rushing forward, wrapped 

 in excited snow dust. Above its resting place I 

 saw the transient, mile-high snow-dust pillar si- 

 lently rise. The echoes ceased, and this dust monu- 

 ment quickly vanished. 



