[Illustration: "SNAPPED HIS HALTER AND BROKE AWAY."]
NOW, while Donny stood holding Ben Bow by the bridle, the old horse
reared, plunged violently, snapped his halter, and broke away. The boy,
at the same instant, was hurled to the ground. The ringing of hoofs and
whir of wheels made strange sensations in his ears. He thought what a
fool he was to be knocked down by old Ben Bow.
[Illustration: "HE GOT DOWN ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES AND CRAWLED."]
Then he tottered to his feet. Complete darkness had come. There was an
unearthly silence. Then a moan, then a howl and a shriek arose which
reached from group to group, from house to house, from square to forest.
Human and animal cries blended in one piteous appeal for mercy.
Again the unknown power smote the lad to the earth, which had become a
raging sea. It rocked--it rolled. Terrified, the child no longer
attempted to stand. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled.
[Illustration: "BIRDS SEEMED TO SING THROUGH THE AIR."]
The trees whistled overhead. Flocks of birds seemed to sing through the
air, striking against the telegraph wires. The atmosphere, which but a
few moments ago reeked with heat, took on a grave-like chill. Again the
earth heaved and swayed beneath the frightened youngster, who fell upon
his face, vainly clawing the ground for the support which it denied him.
The station was only twenty yards away. There, all the people were in a
turmoil. While endeavoring to regain their feet, some were violently
thrown upon the wooden platform. Others, holding to the side of the
building, felt with stupefaction the boards totter beneath their touch.
Was judgment at hand? Had the end of the world come? The terror of a
nameless danger unmanned the stoutest heart. Women shrieked and prayed.
Men cursed and groaned.
[Illustration: "HAD THE END OF THE WORLD COME?"]
Donny had now joined the stricken group. They huddled together until
another shock threw them one upon another. Delicate women became
nauseated as if in mid-ocean. Sturdy men who had faced bullets in the
Civil War without wincing, lost self-control. They surged; they fought;
they comforted each other; they cried aloud.
At this moment a frightful tremor shook the earth. The station building
gave sickening creaks; then it toppled with a crash.
Yell now followed yell. The crowd, that but now waited the joyous
greetings of friends, was battered by the bruises of the earth and
hurried by fright into a contagious state of mania. The bodies and faces
of the people changed almost beyond recognition. Maddened with fear,
stunned by the last concussion, they stampeded.
The cry rang from mouth to mouth: "To the woods! To the hill! Home!
Home!! Home!!!" They swayed; they rushed; they parted; they ran. Struck
as by an invisible enemy, they fell prostrate in the powdery dust. They
picked themselves up again and panted in their flight. A voice close to
Donny's side rang above the uproar: "Good Lord! _It is an earthquake!_"
Like birds before a tornado, the people scattered to the right, to the
left,--this way, that, and were gone. Donny found himself, dazed and
alone, upon the cross-ties, groping toward the oncoming train. He thrust
out his hands and stood a moment piteously crying, "Papä! Papä!" the
most bewildered little fellow in all that frightened town.
[Illustration: "THEY RAN."]
To crawl up the track, to meet the train, to board her, to shriek at
her, to get to his father, to cling to the cow-catcher, perhaps, till
the engineer stopped for sheer mercy,--this was the nearest approach to
a purpose that the child had, as he beat along the track, stumbling,
falling, up again, down again, shaken by the rolling earth, and blinded
by darkness more awful than he had ever seen or thought of.
[Illustration: "THE PAUPER DOG."]
A strange, thin dog, without a collar, whined at his feet as he pushed
on, and licked his hand and followed him like his own. Huge, dim forms
rushed alongside the embankment, making unearthly sounds. Dragons
could not have seemed more dreadful; but they were only cows. Huge
pine-trees bent to the earth with rapid, vibratory motion as if a
giant's hand clutched and shook them by the roots.
[Illustration: "THEY WERE ONLY COWS."]
All the time the awful rumbling of the earth went on; it sounded as if
the world were turning herself over, and thrashing to and fro in a fit
of anger; before every convulsion she uttered a roar which seemed as if
it came from a metal ball bowled along a giant alley beneath. It reached
its climax by trilling the letter _=R-r-r-r-r!=_ in a mighty voice. Then
came the shock.
Suddenly, as the child was making his way through the horror and
desolation of this scene, he felt himself clasped in the outstretched
arms of a figure hurrying from the opposite direction. The two came
together in the dark with a jolt, and recoiled.
"Goramercy!" said a quavering voice. It was the speech of the old Negro
track-walker, taking two days to get to his dying daughter because he
could not afford the railroad ticket that would have brought him to her
in two hours. Donny recognized the high, cracked, pathetic tones which
had addressed him at the station.
"De track's busted!" panted the Negro. "De rails is done gone twist wid
de shakes. Dey lays like er heap ob corn-shuck in de win' up yander. Dat
ar train don' know hit, an' she'll go to Day ob Jedgment, an' ebery soul
aboard ob her! I'se run like de nation fer to warn de town!"
[Illustration: "RUN FOR 'T! RUN!"]
"Oh, there isn't any town to warn!" cried Donny. "It's all run off!
There isn't anything left but the earthquake and me--and this pup--and
nobody to do anything--and my papä's aboard that train! Oh, what shall
we do? What shall we do?"
"Run, honey, run!" said the old man, more hopefully. "Mebbe we'll head
her off some ways or 'nuther. Run for 't! Run!"
The dirty old black hand clasped the tender little white one, which
nestled into it gratefully. What it meant at that awful time not to be
alone,--to feel a human touch, to know that a human heart beat beside
you,--one would have to be in the child's place to understand.