Then the storm which had been holding its breath broke with singular
fury. The frost bared its teeth. The clouds still volleyed, but their
discharge now filled the air with harsh, minute particles that stung
bare skin like hot sand blown from a funnel. The wind shrieked its
whole tonal gamut among the trees. It ripped the clinging masses of
snow from drooping bough and exposed cliff and flung it here and there
in swirling clouds. And above the treble voices of the storm
Hollister, from the warm security of the cabin, could hear the
intermittent rumbling of terrific slides. He could feel faint tremors
in the earth from the shock of the arrested avalanche.
This elemental fury wore itself out at last. The wind shrank to chill
whisperings. But the sky remained gray and lowering, and the great
mountain ranges--white again from foot to crest, save where the slides
had left gashes of brown earth and bare granite--were wrapped in
winter mists, obscuring vapors that drifted and opened and closed
again. Hollister could stir abroad once more.
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