Then the rain smote us and knocked the breath clean out of me. I had heard of such onslaughts but had hardly credited those who told of them. I might have asked pardon then for my unbelief. I was sent flying on the hillside and was like a cloth drawn through water before I could get to my feet again. The Indian was scarcely visible, nor his three horses. I saw him prone one moment, and again I saw him trying to hold them together as he—how shall I describe it?—_lay_ aslant upon the gale. I succeeded in quieting my beast, and then turned and signed to him that I would lead one of his beasts also, for when I opened my mouth to speak, he being windward of me, the gust of the gale blew clean into my lungs so that I had to whirl about and with lowered head gasp out the breath and steady myself. But he signed to me to go, and nodded his head in reassurance; though what he cried to me went past my ear in an incomprehensible yell. Thus, staggering and swaying, we won back to the rib beside the cabin, but this we could scarcely mount. So the Indian, coming level with me, stretched his hand and signed that he would hold my pack-horse with his own. I saw the sheriff battling with the gale and the dim forms of Apache Kid and Slim a little ahead of him, Slim and Apache Kid weighted greatly down. How we ever succeeded in getting the saddles on the horses seemed a mystery. But the beasts themselves were in a state of collapse with terror. I dare say they would have stampeded had there been any place to stampede to; but there was no place. For a good five minutes you might have thought we were hauling on saddles and drawing up straps and cinches on the bed of a lake that had a terrible undercurrent in it. Then the first onslaught passed and we saw the hill clear for a moment, but still lashed with hail, so that our hands were stiff and numb. The sheriff and Apache Kid were floundering back to the cabin, and it was then that the catastrophe that the Indian had feared took place. Mercifully, it was not so sudden as an avalanche of snow; for, at the united yell of the three of us who cowered there with the beasts, the sheriff and Apache Kid looked up at the toppling mountain. Aye, toppling is the word for it. The lower rim of the chasm I told you of was falling over and spreading down the surface of the hill. It was a slow enough progress to begin with, and the two men seemed to waver and consider the possibility of again reaching the cabin. Then they saw what we beheld also—the whole face of the mountain below the chasm sagged forward. It looked as though there was a steadfast rib along the top; but barely had they gained the rocky part where we stood, than that apparent backbone collapsed upon the lower part, and, I suppose with the shock of the impact on the rest, completed the mischief. The sound of it was scarce louder than the hiss of the rain, a multitude of soft bubblings and squelchings. But if there was with this fall no sound as