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Show AVALANCHE ! CORNER By Richard Hill Wilkinson I THE landslide occurred on March 8. It was the evening before that Lorelei and Stan quarreled. The real cause of the quarrel was Inez Thayer, Thay-er, Deke Whitman's stepdaughter. I 1 Deke was the 3 -Minute mife superintend-,. superintend-,. ent, and Inez had rICTIOn come to spend a ' couple of weeks with him. Inez was disappointed in the place. She had always thought of Arizona as a land of desert. Warm. Romantic. Nobody had told her that there were mountains in Arizona and that up in those mountains the temperature in March got well down below the freezing point. She probably wouldn't have remained a week if it hadn't been for Stan Seymcnr. Stan was a young engineer. Inez took one look at him and decided to stay. A woman in love sees many things that others let pass by unnoticed. Lorelei, who was the daughter of Jim Tristram, the mine foreman, had been in love with Stan since the day he arrived six months before, and he with her. Their love was unspoken, un-spoken, but it lay between them like a tangible thing. Lorelei was glad now that neither had put into words the thing that both had felt, for now there need be no explaining or embarrassments. Some day, she knew, the hurt that grew inside of her as she watched Stan yield to the polished charm of Inez Thayer would fade and vanish. So on the evening of March 7 Lorelei and Stan quarreled. And each knew that Inez was the cause of the quarrel, though both pretended pretend-ed it was over the matter of holding the annual spring dance in Redstone this year instead of at the mine. "Help me!" she cried. And turned desperate eyes toward Inez. IT was warm that night of March 7. Unnaturally warm. The heavy snows atop the mountain range against the base of which the mine buildings nestled began to melt, and on the morning of March 8 they began be-gan to move, slipping down the mountain, loosening tons of earth and ice and rock. Lorelei was coming up from the rural delivery postoffice box with the mail. She heard the ominous roar and stopped. A moment before she had seen Stan and Inez enter the tiny engineer's field office, and, without thinking she started running toward it, shouting at the top of her lungs. Men appeared from other buildings build-ings and took up the cry, and before long a great crowd was racing down the valley road out of the path of the onrushing avalanche. But Stan and Inez didn't appear in the doorway of the engineer's office and Lorelei kept on running, screaming. Above the office was a sharp outcropping of rock. When the avalanche hit this it divided, and stones and earth were catapulted into space over the building. Lorelei had pushed open the door when this happened She glimpsed Inez in Stan's arms. Then a falling timber crashed toward them and she screamed. Stan pushed Inez away from him, and almost got clear himself, but 't grazed his shoulder and knocked him flat. For a moment Lorelei stood transfixed. trans-fixed. Then she leaped forward and began prying at the timber. "Help me!" she cried. And she turned desperate eyes toward Inez. At the door, Inez turned. Her face was white. "Don't be a fool!" she shrieked. "Save yourself!" your-self!" Then the roar and crash became louder, drowning out her words. The first avalanche had started a second. Inez flung open 'he door and rushed outside. Stan pulled Lorelei down beside him and yelled into her ear: "Go on! You've still got a chance. You can't save me!" But she only stared at him in horror. Then she began picking up timbers and propping them in a sort of lean- to against the one undamaged wall, sheltering them. Rescue crews came in and were amazed to find the two alive. They pried Stan loose and carried him away on a stretcher. One of his legs was broken. When he came out of the ether. Lorelei was beside his bed. She smiled and said, "She's safe. She got clear and escaped without a bruise." He looked at her and said nothing. noth-ing. Then he took her hand and drew her down close to him. "It's more important that you're safe ." |