Then—as he was walking back to his car—he heard it! It was unmistakable. He started to run for his car. The strange low hissing noise rose with a crescendo in pitch and intensity. Through the falling snow he could see nothing. Then as he ran, the whole roadway shook with some sudden impact; the hissing changed to a thudding. Like an advancing wave of water, a wave of snow came running along the highway. It pinned him against the side of his car, half-knocking his breath out.

In the next instant he found himself standing in three feet of snow. There was sudden quiet.

Pinned against the car, the Superintendent looked quickly to his right up the road; some twenty feet farther on, the wave of snow had come to a halt; for a moment with all the pressure of the mass behind, it had flowed madly, like a torrent of water; now it was only inert snow. He glanced hurriedly to his left, down the road. Where Peters and Swenson had been working with the rotary was now only a long unbroken slope of snow. The Superintendent wormed himself about, and got free. He saw that the snow behind his car was piled up too high for him to wallow through.

“Hey!” he shouted, cupping his hands in front of his mouth. “Peters! Swenson!”

He waited but there was no answer. Well, there was probably no need to worry. Things were bad, but they were most likely not nearly as bad as they looked. The road was not carried away. The slide had merely filled the roadway with snow, and swept on. On the outside edge of the road, the snow would be only a few feet deep; on the inside the depth might reach forty feet. Somewhere within that mass of snow was the rotary.

But the tough steel would withstand much more pressure than forty feet of snow could exert. Peters and Swenson were this moment undoubtedly still sitting inside the cab—white-faced probably, considerably surprised at their sudden entombment, perhaps still a little scared, but safe. Peters would already have had presence of mind enough to turn off the engine and prevent them from being asphyxiated. In a moment they would collect themselves enough to begin discussing whether they would try to dig themselves out, or merely sit tight until they were rescued.

Thinking of how flabbergasted Peters and Swenson would be made the Superintendent realize that he himself was almost as much appalled. And yet these great slides from the heights could be expected a few times during every hard winter; he had just never happened previously to be present during the few seconds when one occurred; he had been within earshot often enough.