Page:Pioneersorsource01cooprich.djvu/64

 At this critical moment, the young hunter, who, during the salutations of the parties, had sat in rather sullen silence, sprang from the sleigh of Marmaduke to the heads of the refractory leaders. The horses, who were yet suffering under the injudicious and somewhat random blows from Richard, were dancing up and down with that ominous movement, that threatens a sudden and uncontrollable start, and pressing backward instead of going into the quarry. The youth gave the leaders a powerful jerk, and they plunged aside, by the path they had themselves trodden, and re-entered the road in the position in which they were first halted. The sleigh was whirled from its dangerous position, and upset with its runners outwards. The German and the divine were thrown rather unceremoniously into the highway, but without danger to their bones. Richard appeared in the air, for a moment, describing the segment of a circle, of which the reins were the radii, and was landed at the distance of some fifteen feet, in that snow-bank which the horses had dreaded, right end uppermost. Here, as he instinctively grasped the reins, as drowning men seize at straws, he admirably served the purpose of an anchor, to check the further career of his steeds. The Frenchman, who was on his legs in the act of springing from the sleigh, took an aerial flight also, much in that attitude which boys assume when they play leap-frog; and flying off in a tangent to the curvature of his course, came into the snow-bank head foremost, where he remained, exhibiting two lathy legs on high, like scare-crows waving in a corn field. Major Hartmann, whose self-possession had been admirably preserved during the whole evolution, was the first of the party that gained his feet and his voice.