Of course Horace Townsend, at that moment of doubt whether he stood upon his head or his heels--whether he had gone stark mad or retained a fair measure of sanity--whether the earth yet revolved in its usual orbit or had gone wandering off into cometary space, beyond all physical laws--of course at that moment he could not know precisely what had occurred to produce that sudden and singular change; and he could only learn, the moment after, from those who had been on the higher ground behind at the moment of the peril. According to their explanations, at the moment when they all saw the danger with a shudder and a holding of the very breath, Rowan had been heard to utter a single exclamation: "Well, I swear!" (a rough phrase, and one that he should by no means have used; but let his Western life and training entitle him to some consideration)--dashed spurs into the side of his horse--crowded by the five or six who preceded him, in a path considered impassable for more than one horse at a time--and then, with a wild Indian cry that he apparently could not restrain, spurred up the side of the rock, between Clara Vanderlyn and the verge of the precipice, certainly where the off feet of his horse could not have been thirty inches from the slippery edge, and literally jerked her horse and herself off into the path by the impetus of his own animal outside and the sudden grip which he closed upon her bridle as he went by, himself coming down into the path ahead, and neither unseated! Miss Vanderlyn's pony had struck the lawyer's horse as he came down in his enforced flying leap; and thus were explained all the sights, sounds, and physical events of that apparently supernatural moment. The scene which followed, only a few moments after, when the leading members of the cavalcade (Clara Vanderlyn in the midst of it, supported by Rowan, who managed to keep near her)--the scene which followed, we say, when they reached a little plateau where the company had room to gather, will not be more easily effaced from the memory of those who were present than the terrible danger which had just preceded it. The overstrung nerves of the poor girl gave way at that point, and she dropped from her horse in a swoon, just as Halstead Rowan (singular coincidence!) had slipped from the saddle and was ready to catch her as she fell! What more natural than that in falling and being caught, she should have thrown her arms round the stout neck of the Illinoisan? And what more inevitable than that he should have been a considerable time in getting ready to lay her down upon the horse-blankets that had been suddenly pulled off and spread for her,--and that finally, the clinging grasp still continuing, he should have dropped himself on one corner of the blanket and furnished the requisite support to her head and shoulders?