nate train still survived.
He saw that the course he had taken from the west portal was no longer
possible, but by keeping the curve of the ridge which joined the mountain
slope and formed the top of the gorge, and by working upward, he should be
able to gain the upper edge of the slide where rose the human sounds. He
took this way. His shoulder, turned a little, met the lower boughs with
the dip and push of the practiced woodsman, and even on the up-grade the
distance fell behind him swiftly. Always subconsciously, as he moved, he
saw that baby crowing him a good-by, and the young father smiling Godspeed
from the observation platform; sometimes the girl mother with tender brown
eyes watched him from the background. Suppose their coach, which had
directly preceded the observation car, had escaped; the snow-cloud,
parting on the mountain top, showed that the roofs of the station still
remained.

After a while he noticed two men working downward from the portal along
the swath of the avalanche. One, he conjectured, was the operator, but
they stopped some distance above him and commenced to remove sections of
the debris. Then Hollis saw before him some brilliant spots on the snow.
They proved to be only pieces of stained glass from a shattered transom.
The side of the car with denuded window casings rested a few feet higher,
and a corner of the top of the coach protruded from under the fallen
skeleton of a fir. The voices now seemed all around him. Somewhere a man
was shouting "Help!" Another groaned, cursing, and, deeper in the
wreckage, rose a woman's muffled, continuous screaming. But, nearer than
the rest, a child was crying piteously. He reached the intact portion of
the crushed roof and found the baby sitting unhurt on a clear breadth of
snow. The body of the father was pinned hopelessly beneath the tree, and
the mother lay under the fragment of roof, an iron bar on her tender eyes.
It was as though Destiny, having destroyed them, whimsically threw a
charmed circle around this remaining atom of the family.

"Well, Joey," Tisdale said quietly, "I've come back for you."

Instantly the child stopped crying and turned to listen; then, seeing
Tisdale, he began to crow, rocking his little body and catching up
handsful of snow to demonstrate his delight. The hands and round bud of a
mouth were blue.

"Cold, isn't it, Joey?" And he took the baby in his arms. "We can't find
your coat and mittens, but here is a nice blanket