THE ANIMALS STAMPEDED

Probably, if I had moved more cautiously, I might have circled around them, and thus checked their flight until the negroes could come up; but I was so thoroughly alarmed by the rapid rise of the water and the ominous roaring in the distance, that I set off at full speed directly toward the animals, and in a twinkling they broke into a gallop, stampeding the sheep by plunging among them.

As if this was not sufficient disaster, the cattle, which had been feeding fully a mile farther down the valley, now wheeled suddenly about in alarm, and set off over the ridge, bellowing with fear, their tails swinging high in the air.

So unreasoning was I in the sudden fright which had come upon me, that I failed to realize it would be useless to pursue any of our live stock, until father shouted for me to turn back without loss of time. His voice, even though he was no more than two hundred yards away, came dimly to my ears because of the increasing roar in the distance, which sounded more and more threatening each instant.

When I gathered my wits about me sufficiently to obey the command, I saw that he, with the negroes, was striving desperately to haul one of the heavy wagons from the bank of the stream; but so sodden with water was the earth that the wheels sank into the soft surface to the depth of two or three inches, and, struggle as they might, it could not be moved a single pace.