Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/175

 "And there'd only be about ten feet of snow in here to break out, I reckon," Art answered.

"Nearer thirty," said Mr. Rogers.

Over two miles below the Crawford House they came to the site of the old Willey House, and saw through the trees to the west the towering wall of Mount Willey, scarred still by the great landslide, seeming to hang over them.

"There's where she started," said Mr. Rogers, pointing to the top of the mountain. "It was back in late August, in 1826, that the slide came. There had been a drought, making the thin soil on the mountain very dry. Then came a terrific storm, a regular cloudburst, and the water went through the soil and began running down on the rocks underneath. That started the soil and the trees on it sliding, and they gathered headway and more soil and debris and rocks as they came, the way a snow-*ball gathers more snow, and presently a whole strip of the wall was thundering down.

"There had been a smaller slide in June, which had terrified the family, and Willey had built a sort of slide-proof shelter down the road, in case another came. It wasn't so far away that the family didn't have time to get to it, if they started when they heard the slide first coming, and nobody has ever been able to explain why none of them got there. James Willey, a brother of the dead man, however, always