rash! crash!! crash!!!—O God, what awful roar!
It bursts upon my hearing ever more!
A rush, a fury; sudden, bitter cold;
Confusion utter on my senses rolled;
A rending, grinding; hiss of sliding snow;
Enormous mixing of dread sounds below;
A noise terrific, wonderful and vast,
As though of earthly things it told the last;
Like trump of doom it seemed to rend the sky,
And turn the brain to numbness——Where was I?
Half stunned I sat bolt upright in my bunk;
My head swam round as if I had been drunk.
The sudden noise had ended, all was still,
And yet a tremor did the darkness fill;
Our lamp still burned, a red spot in the gloom,
But all was chill and silent as a tomb.
I was too dazed, too lost to understand,
Yet felt the snow drift on my face and hand.
I called aloud to Jo. No answer came.
I called, again, again, and 'twas the same!
What was it? Where was Jo? What did it mean?
What meant that vacancy where Jo had been!
His bunk was empty, and the stove was—where?
Was that Jo's hat upon the table there?
In sort of dreamy spell I stared and asked,
But to the answering felt myself o'ertasked.
Why did our cabin wall so whitish grow—
Why did it look so very much like snow?
In distance, too, I saw it slow expand,
And still I felt the snow on face and hand.
Then I was wide awake! My mind was cleared—
Oh, all too plain the dreadful truth appeared!
The slides! the slides! "Our Home" was wrecked by slides!
And there was terror in this thought besides—
My Jo? Ah! God of Mercy! where was Jo?
Did he lie bleeding on the rocks below?
"Our Home" was struck, there but remained the half—
Oh, then I seemed to hear the dark fates laugh!
Not one thing touched or moved where I had lain,
And Jo, perhaps, hurled down to ghastly pain.
Down, down the slopes he had been whirled away,
Ere this it might be—was but lifeless clay:
Was that a voice that called on me to come,
While I stood there in anguish, terror-dumb?
Outside the wreck—when I stood there at last,
The storm rolled back—as if in mockery passed;
A scene of desolation, weird and white,
Beneath the parting clouds fell on my sight;
Like to a lamp the moon hung wan and pale,
As though it lit the path through death's own vale.
My pair of snow-shoes from the wall I took—
Jo's hung there with them on the self-same hook—
Then to my belt a miner's lamp I tied,
Seized the long pole that would my steep course guide;
Though frantic in my fear, all desperate,
I must my acts in order regulate.
Well that some little skill I could command,
Well that I know each foot of mountain land;
Or never could I, had it not been so,
Have reached the spot where I, at last, found Jo.
The snow was wildly drifted; rocks were bare,
The white blown from them to make mounds in air;
The surface here all soft and loose did feel,
Here 'twas hard-packed and smooth as polished steel.
The slides had met above—there had been two—
Their mighty tracks stretched upward full in view;
Where they had joined in fierce and deadly shock
Was piled on high the tons of shattered rock.
One had possessed a greater power and force
And drove the other from its downward course—
You see how all conspired to change our luck—
That swerve was why the cabin had been struck;
And far below, in a small valley penned,
The rushing snow was forced to make an end,
A level space with rocks all jagged and sharp,
The first uplifting of the counterscarp.
If Jo against those cruel rocks was borne,
Oh, then, I knew, was come my time to mourn!
And hidden dangers it was mine to face,
A moment, I believe, I asked for grace;
Then without pause I glided down the slope,
In that hot fire that burns 'tween fear and hope.
I knew not where to pause or where to look;
The awful wreckage all my courage shook;
He might be crushed by boulder or tree-trunk,
Or out of reach in some ravine be sunk.
Each object dark that on the surface lay
Plucked at my heart and filled me with dismay.
What likely seemed within the shadows dim,
I hoped, yet dreaded, that it might be him!
What were those timbers sticking through the snow?
I hardly dared another glance bestow.
Ah! what were they it needed little proof,
'Twas splintered fragments of our cabin roof:
And what was that black something lying there?
'Twas Jo's great coat that hung upon his chair.
Was he, then, somewhere near? Oh! could I save?
One choking thump I felt that my heart gave,
Then in my bosom it was turned to lead.
Where was he? Was he yet alive—or dead?