Heaven be praised! My head broke through; in this low and sheltered gorge it was but a film no thicker than a penny formed by the light frost of the previous night.

So I rose from the deep and stared about me, treading water with my feet.
Then I saw the gladdest sight that ever my eyes beheld, for on the right, not ten yards away, the water running from his hair and beard, was Leo.

Leo alive, for he broke the thin ice with his arms as he struggled towards the shore from the deep river.[*] He saw me also, and his grey eyes seemed to start out of his head.
[*] Usually, as we learned afterwards, the river at this spot was quite shallow; only a foot or two in depth.

It was the avalanche that by damming it with fallen heaps of snow had raised its level very many feet.

Therefore, to this avalanche, which had threatened to destroy us, we in reality owed our lives, for had the stream stood only at its normal height we must have been dashed to pieces upon the stones.
-- L.