sword-play, while the roar of heaven's artillery grew louder and louder. His spirit rose with the strife, filling him with a strange sense of exaltation.
Suddenly the universe seemed wrapped in flame, there was a deafening crash as though the eternal hills were being rent asunder, and then—oblivion!
When that instant of blinding light and deafening sound had passed John Darrell lay prostrate, unconscious on the rocks.
As the morning sun arose over the snowy summits of the Great Divide, the sleeper on the rocks stirred restlessly; then gradually awoke to consciousness—a delightful consciousness of renewed life and vigor, a subtle sense of revivification of body and mind. The racking pain, the burning fever, the legions of torturing phantoms, all were gone; his pulse was calm, his blood cool, his brain clear.
With a sigh of deep content he opened his eyes; then suddenly rose to a sitting posture and gazed about him in utter bewilderment; above him only the boundless dome of heaven, around him only endless mountain ranges! Dazed by the strangeness, the isolation of the scene, he began for an instant to doubt his sanity; was this a reality or a chimera of his own imagination? But only for an instant, for with his first movement a large collie had bounded to his side and now began licking his hands and face with the most joyful demonstrations. There was something soothing and reassuring in the companionship even of the dumb brute, and he caressed the noble creature, confident that he would soon find some sign of human life in that strange region; but the dog, reading no look of recognition in the face beside him, drew back and began whining piteously.
Perplexed, but with his faculties thoroughly aroused and active, the young man sprang to his feet, and, looking eagerly about him,
discovered at a little distance the cabin against the mountain ledge. Hastening thither he found the door open, and, after vainly waiting for any response to his knocking, entered.