Then in our fear we lay still, waiting for the end, and wondering dimly whether we should be buried in the surging snow or swept away with the hill, or crushed by the flying rocks, or lifted and lost in the hurricane.
How long did it last?
We never knew.

It may have been ten minutes or two hours, for in such a scene time loses its proportion.

Only we became aware that the wind had fallen, while the noise of grinding snow and hurtling boulders ceased.

Very cautiously we gained our feet and looked.
In front of us was sheer mountain side, for a depth of over two miles, the width of about a thousand yards, which had been covered with many feet of snow, was now bare rock.

Piled up against the face of our hill, almost to its summit, lay a tongue of snow, pressed to the consistency of ice and spotted with boulders that had lodged there.