"This is a fine pickle!" exclaimed Mr. Alexander. "On top of the wurrold, and no sign of any help at hand to do anything for you. Even the blamed old k.n.o.b on this peak had to roll down and block the way."

Mrs. Fabian was trying to make her companion speak and tell them where she was injured, but she shook her head as if unable to speak. Dodo and her father addressed her by every affectionate name they could think of, and begged her to say what hurt. Her face was slightly cut but the blood made it seem appalling to others.

"If you'll only get over this, Maggie, I'll never put another straw in your way of hooking a t.i.tle," begged Mr. Alexander, his expression a mixture of renunciation and misery.

After many minutes filled with suspense for the motorists, and the same time filled by Mrs. Alexander's groans and helpless rolling of her eyes from one to another of the distracted motorists, she gradually recovered enough to whisper: "The wheel must have fractured my ribs. I can feel the sharp ends of the splintered bones cut me everytime I breathe, or move a muscle."

Mrs. Fabian then ordered the men to retire back of the big car, while she helped the girls in gently lifting the injured lady and placing her out flat on the comfortable seat of the roadster. With many a cry and catching of breath, the patient was finally stretched out.

"Now I shall have to cut your gown open in front to get at your stays,"

said Mrs. Fabian, using the small scissors she kept in her large handbag.

Mrs. Alexander tried to object at having her expensive suit ruined, but Dodo held her hands while the scissors cut their way up and down. Once the outer clothing was opened the cause of the sharp point of the "fracture" was revealed.

"Thank goodness, Mrs. Alexander, that it is no worse!" exclaimed Mrs.

Fabian, and the girls seconded that exclamation as they found the front steels of the stays had broken and were digging into the flesh under them.

The silken corsets were soon slashed through and the broken fronts removed, then Dodo said to her mother: "Take a deep breath, now."

"O-oh-I'm afraid to, Dodo. It will hurt!" whimpered Mrs. Alexander.

"No it won't! Mrs. Fabian managed to pull the steels out and she doesn't believe any of your ribs are broken."

So, holding tightly to her daughter's hand to encourage her, Mrs.

Alexander breathed lightly. As she felt no sharp dagger thrust of pain, she took a deeper breath, and finally rea.s.sured herself that her bones were as good as ever. At last she sat up and began fretting over her damaged travelling suit, in such a tone that everyone around her, knew she was fully recovered.

While this "first aid" had been going on, no one noticed the pebbles that were dropping from the over-hanging crags that seemed to bolster up the peak above them. But when Mrs. Alexander found she could move and get out of the car, some of the stones struck the girls. They gazed up but could see nothing beyond the high run of crag that faced the roadway, consequently, they moved from under the shower which kept getting worse.

Mr. Fabian ran up now and expressed deepest concern as he said: "Everyone try to get under that great rock, at once. I'll shove the roadster under the cliff, too."

"Where's Pa?" cried Dodo, sensing some unusual danger.

"Here he comes!" called Polly, seeing Mr. Alexander driving his car close up under the rocks.

The moment the car was halted close in to the bank, Mr. Alexander jumped out and ran to help Mr. Fabian push and pull the damaged roadster under the cliff, also.

"What's the matter, anyway?" asked Mrs. Alexander, looking about at the others for information. But they seemed as much at sea as she was. All but Polly, who knew from experience what the signs portended.

"It looks like a slide, but it may be diverted before it goes over us."

Her trembling voice and awed expression impressed her companions more than the words she had spoken.

"That's what I feared, and we've done the only thing possible-to crouch under the cliff and wait," added Mr. Fabian.

Mr. Alexander now took out his old black pipe and tobacco bag. As he carefully pulled open the yellow cord at the top of the cheap cotton bag he smiled and gazed at his friends. "You-all don' know how sorry I am for you, to think you-all can't take a smoke to kill the time we has to sit here."

Mr. Fabian felt encouraged instantly by the wonderful acting of the little man who could thus speak and smile and joke, in face of what was now thundering and rumbling overhead-ever coming nearer the group huddling under the cliffs.

"Nothin' like tobac to soothe the feelin's when you've had a punctured rib or tire! If Maggie could only enjoy a whiff of this old friend of mine, she'd soon have got over her pain."

That irritated his wife so that she snapped back: "Yes, a whiff of that would have killed me outright!"

The others laughed uneasily but the tense spell caused by the imminent danger was broken. Mr. Alexander puffed contentedly, but during this short exchange of conjugal sentiments of husband and wife, the slide rolled onward, and the roar now became so deafening that no one could hear a thing other than the thunder of the avalanche. Polly was the only one who really comprehended the full danger, but she showed no fear or nervousness, although she was doubtful as to the outcome of this mountain disaster.

Rocks, roots, and all kinds of debris half-frozen in snow now rolled over the cliffs and dropped over down the sides into the ravine that ran along the other side of the narrow roadway. At the quaking caused by the onrush of the avalanche, the automobiles rattled like tin toys and the cowering humans who tried to push still farther back into the rocky wall, watched the fragments of rock fall from overhead and pile upon the roadway.

The whole dreadful occurrence, thus far, had not taken more than a few minutes since the first pebble struck the roadster, but now was heard a terrible splitting and crashing as if two planets were colliding; then the very cliff where they sat seemed to roll over and shake the earth.

The frightened tourists clung to each other and screamed in a panic, but the worst was really over.

The last horror was caused by the sudden impact of the land-slide when it struck the solid wall of rock that rose sheer up back of the cliff which skirted the road for tourists. This wall diverted the avalanche and threw it along the gully which had been made by other preceding snow-slides in the past. Had the present slide been able to crush the rocky wall and come straight on down the mountain sides, nothing earthly could have spared the tourists from being powdered under the grinding of rock and ice.

The roar and tumult of the avalanche continued a few minutes longer, but it gradually died away and Mr. Fabian stood tremblingly upon his feet and tried to see which way the slide had gone.

"Humph! 'A miss is as good as a mile'!" quoted Mr. Alex.

"Maybe; but don't you go out to survey until we-all are sure this shower of ice and trash is safely past us," advised Polly.

"Don't you think we had better get from under this cliff?" asked Eleanor, nervously.

"If it stood that shock, it will last a few moments more, I reckon,"

replied Mr. Alexander.

The other members in the party were too frightened at seeing the rocks and ice that still poured over the cliff, to speak a word. When the dropping had ceased, however, and the roar was diminishing, Polly heaved an audible sigh.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POLLY WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO COMPREHENDED THE DANGER.]

"Well, folkses! That's over! I've been in slides on the Rockies, but I never felt so queer as this one made me feel. When you understand your ground well, and can reckon on what might hold or what might give way, you feel easier. But on the Alps where all is new and strange to me, I wasn't sure of this cliff being able to resist the impact."

"Then it _was_ very dangerous for us, was it?" gasped Mrs. Alexander, paling under the rouge on her face.

"Danger! Oh no-no more than jumpin' off that precipice for a lark!"

laughed Mr. Alexander, knocking the half-smoked ashes from his old pipe, and tucking the black friend away in his pocket.

"Well, Ebeneezer, when I see you waste good tobacco like that, I know you are so unbalanced that you don't know what you're doing," retorted Mrs. Alexander.

This remark caused a laugh and everyone felt better immediately. Then Mr. Fabian turned to the little man and said: "We had better see how much damage is done to the roadster. Perhaps it will have to be towed to the next stopping place."

It took another good hour to overhaul the little car and even then it was found to be too badly damaged to travel under its own power. While the two men were trying to repair the car, the girls worked to clear away the stones and debris that enc.u.mbered and blocked the road. The large rock that had caused the accident to Mrs. Alexander's car, could be avoided, with careful steering, if the other trash was out of the way.

Polly showed her companions how to construct rough brooms of the brush that had fallen over the cliff, and soon they were sweeping for dear life, with the queer-looking implements. But the brush-brooms did the work thoroughly, and when the cars were ready to continue on the way, the road was cleared.

"Prof., before we leave here, I think we ought to place a sort of warning on the other side of that awful heap and the chasms in the roadway that the avalanche caused. We might use the red-silk shirt-waist I have in the bag," said Polly, anxiously.

"Or go on to report to the nearest forester we meet," said Mr.

Alexander, from his western experience.

"We'll do both," returned Mr. Fabian. "It won't take long to ram a pole in the debris and tie the red flag on it, but it may save others a great deal of danger."

"Better still, if we can crawl over the slide that is piled high up on the trail, I might tie the flag to a young tree far enough down the roadway to spare anyone the climb to this narrow pa.s.s where they cannot turn around," added Polly.