As soon as we recovered from the shock, we
found that we had been most mercifully preserved; strange to say,
neither horse nor rider had received any serious injury. We heard, above
our heads, the hissing and cracking of the fire; we contemplated with
awe the flames, which were roaring along the edge of the precipice--now
rising, now lowering, just as if they would leap over the space and
annihilate all life in these western solitudes.
We were preserved; our fall had been broken by the animals, who had
taken a leap a second before us, and by the thousands of bodies which
were heaped up as a hecatomb, and received us as a cushion below. With
difficulty we extricated ourselves and horses, and descending the mass
of carcasses, we at last succeeded in reaching a few acres of clear
ground. It was elevated a few feet above the water of the torrent, which
ran through the ravine, and offered to our broken-down horses a
magnificent pasture of sweet blue grass. But the poor things were too
terrified and exhausted, and they stretched themselves down upon the
ground, a painful spectacle of utter helplessness.
We perceived that the crowds of flying animals had succeeded in finding,
some way further down an ascent to the opposite prairie; and as the
earth and rocks still trembled, we knew that the "estampede" had not
ceased, and that the millions of fugitives had resumed their mad career.
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