Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/266

 the long, empty cañon was now deafening. The boom of it was so close that Nan glanced over her shoulder and the sight behind her all but stopped the beating of her heart.

Under her horse's racing feet an inch or two of water flowed placidly; a hundred yards from his heels a wall of water was rushing upon them like some monstrous thing of life bent on their destruction!

The perpendicular face of it was as even as though sliced with a giant cleaver, and behind, uprooted trees, fence-rails and gates, the roof of a house, a bridge, drowned cattle, pitched and rolled in the yellow flood!

Nan grew limp and sick, for, in the swift glance over her shoulder she missed Bob, and then she saw the horse which Edith rode now running nearly even with her own!

A turn brought the end of the cañon in sight. Outside, bawling cattle with their heads and tails in air were running aimlessly from the threatening danger.

Ten seconds! Five seconds! Could they make it?

The yellow wall was all but upon them. Nan, fainting, swayed in the saddle.