To the right, just before reaching the Basin, a turn struck off that skirted round, partly ascending again until it fell into the Cone Hill road and so led direct to Hill-hope.

They could see the buildings, grouped picturesquely against rocks and pines and down against the root of the green hill.  They had all been painted of a light gray or slate color, with red roofs.

They passed on, down into the shadows, where trees were thick and dark.  A damp, rich smell of the woods was about them,—­a different atmosphere from the breath of the hill-top.  They heard the tinkle of little unseen streams, and the far-off, foaming plunge of the cascades.

Suddenly, there came a sound behind them like the rush of an avalanche; a noise that seemed to fill up all the space of the air, and to gather itself down toward them on every side alike.

“O, Rodney, turn!” cried Sylvie.

But there was a horrible second in which he could not know how to turn.

He did not stop to look, even.  He sprang, with one leap, he knew not how,—­over step or dasher,—­to the horse’s head.  He seized him by the bridle, and pulled him off the road, into a thicket of bush-branches, in a hollow rough with stones.

The wheels caught fast; Rodney clung to the horse, who tried to rear; Sylvie sat still on the seat sloped with the sharp cant of the half-overturned vehicle.

There was only a single instant.  Down, with the awful roar of an earthquake, came crashing swift and headlong, passing within a hand’s breadth of their wheel, the enormous, toppling, loaded team; its three strong horses in a wild, plunging gallop; heels, heads, haunches, one dark, frantic, struggling tumble and rush.  An instant more, of paralyzed breathlessness, and then a thundering fall, that made the ground quiver under their feet; then a stillness more suddenly dreadful than the noise.  A great cloud of dust rose slowly up into the air, and showed dimly in the dusky light.

The gray horse quieted, cowed by the very terror and the hush.  Sylvie slipped down from the tilting buggy, and found her feet upon a stone.

Rodney reached out one hand, and she came to his side.  He put his arm around her, and drew her close.

“My darling little Sylvie!” he said.

She turned her face, and leaned it down upon his shoulder.

“O, Rodney, the poor man is killed!”

But as they stood so, a figure came toward them, over the high water-bar below which they had stopped.

“For God’s sake, is anybody hurt?” asked a strange, hoarse voice with a tremble in it.

“Nobody!”

“O, are you the driver?  I thought you must be killed!  How thankful!”—­And Sylvie sobbed on Rodney’s shoulder.

“Can I help you?” asked the man.

“No, look after your horses.”  And the man went on, down into the dust, where the wreck was.

“We’ll go, and send help to you,” shouted Rodney.