UNDER AN AVALANCHE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2635, 1 June 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

UNDER AN AVALANCHE.

, Under tliis heading a writer in Con i hill Magazine tells the following story : There is an elderly man at Kublis : the Pratigau, unless perchance he die i last winter, who haunted the villaj public house and was only too ready relate the following experience of h , earlier days. Ihe Fluna Pass, which now a post road, was in those duys mere bridle path in summer, while : winter the people brought wine from tl \ altelline across it on horseback or on j little sledges not much larger than wh; we wrongly call toboggans now. Tl man in question, whom I will christc Hans Truog, had been enveloped in Schnee-Rutsch (snow slip) while niakin his way upwards from the Engadine or stormy day in February. His body, di entangled from the snow, stark and livi was carried to the Hospiz, and there le I for dead. Hans was a native of the Pri tigau, and soon after this had happened ; another man from Pratigau came in be hind him, bound for Davos, and the home in the same valley. We will ca him, for the sake of clearness, Christia CadulF. The folk of the Refuge aske this Christian whether he would carr the dead man back to their common vi lage in the Pratigau. Christian looke at the corpse, recognised the features ( Hans Truog, and replied that he w.-i willing to do so; but that Hans havin been a surly, ill-conditioned fellow in hi life time, it would serve him well to dra his dead body dow.i at the tail of th wine-sledge. Accordingly he lashed th frozen body lirmly with rope to the en of his own sleilge, and after refreshin himself with wine in the Hospiz, set o at a quick trot across thesnow to Tschug yen, a lonely inn about half-way betwee the Flnela and Davos Dorfi. The suo' upon theie mountain tracks is verysmoot and easy to glide over; therefore poc Hans risked no injury to head of limb, a he swiftly followed his churlish conduc tor's chariot. Nor was Christian Codu so savage as Achilles when lie draggd dead Hector ronnd the walls of w?nd Troy through sand and stones. Wha could the tightly knotted cords about th ankles matter to a corpse? Whei Christian Caduff reached Tscluiggei he unyoked his horse and lookei to his wine barrels, intending b pass the night there, for evening ha< already fallen. Ho also proceeded to untie the body of Hans Truog, and stov it in the stable; humanity touched hi stolid heart so far at least as not to leavi a dead man under moon and stars. Jsu what was his amazement when he per oeived that the body was stirring, drow aily shifting as in some uneasy dream Having disentangled it from the sledgi and drawn it into the warm living rooin Hans gradually revived. The most hi suffered from was the injury to his frozci and frost bitten feet. This kepi him several weeks at Tsclmgyen, bul eventually he was able to walk home tc Pratigau, where he lives, as I have said, to tell the tale. Christian CadufF, on the other hand, has long since joined his forefathers in the village churchyard. | Had it not been for this man's churlishness, and had Christian placed the corp?c beside him on the wine sledge, in all probabilityHans Truog would never have revived from his first sleep. Each minute in the cold air would have congealed the blood in his torpid veins more thoroughly, whereas the rapid passage of his body across the snow, the strong continuous friction of his skin, brought the blond again to the surfacc and stimulated vital circulation. Therefore, to the barbarity of his neighbour he owed that life which the brute force of the avalanche had casually spared.