Elizabeth nodded, and together they caught the bit and laid the beast's head flat on the ground, where the girl held it fast by main force while Luther worked at the straps and buckles. "At last!" he cried, when the name-strap gave way under his fingers. He flung the neck-yoke over against the body of the dead horse, and stepped back to free himself from the dangling lines. Elizabeth let the horse's head loose and jumped back, still holding to the halter-strap. The frightened animal bounded to its feet with a neigh of alarm, dragging the girl out of Luther's reach just as a thunderous roar and utter darkness enveloped them. What happened, exactly, the man never knew. He picked himself up, half senseless, some minutes later, covered with mud, and his clothing half torn from his body. At first he could not recall where he was; then seeing the dead horse in the road, and the upturned bed of the wagon itself, he realized that they had been struck by a cyclone. The darkness had whirled away with the retreating tornado, and a gray light showed the demoralized wagon overturned by the roadside. The wagon was in painful evidence, but Elizabeth? Where was Elizabeth? Looking wildly about in all directions, Luther called her name: "Lizzie! Lizzie! God in heaven! What has become of you?" He remembered the fate of a girl in Marshall County which he had heard discussed only last week. That child had been picked up by one of these whirling devils and her neck broken against a tree! With a wild cry, he turned and ran in the direction of the receding storm, calling her name and looking frantically on both sides of the path where the cyclone had licked the ground as clean as a swept floor. He could see nothing at all of Elizabeth. Realizing at last that he was wasting his efforts, and that some degree of composure would assist in the search, Luther stopped and looked about him. Outside the immediate path of the cyclone, which was cleared of every movable thing, the hay was tossed and thrown about as if it had been forked over the ground to dry itself from the wetting it had had. Hay everywhere, but no living thing to be seen. Could it be that Elizabeth had been carried completely away by the storm, or was she buried in the hay somewhere? Unresponsive as all nature to human emotions, the tumbled grass lay about him, a picture of confusion and ruin. The futility of human effort was borne in upon him as he scanned the waste. A pile larger than the surrounding piles separated itself from the scattered heaps at last. He regarded it eagerly. Yes! there was a flutter of wet calico. Half rejoicing, half terrified at the prospect of what he might find, Luther Hansen ran and flung himself down on his knees beside it, dragging at the half-buried form of the girl in frantic haste. She was doubled together and mixed with the hay as if, after being picked up with it, she had been whirled with it many times and then contemptuously flung aside.