"It is long coming," said Tawannears.
"Yes," answered Kachina, "and when it is here we shall be fortunate if we can breathe."
Suddenly, the moaning roar became a deafening scream; the blackness mantled the earth like a garment, and we, huddled close to the ground, felt the shock of a great arm sweeping just above our heads. It was the wind. There was no rain, but a shower of objects began to fall against the opposite wall of the gulch. Shapes, indistinct in the mirk, crashed formless into the bed of the rivulet. The horses were frantic. The stallion snatched back as something sailed past him, and pulled me to my feet. I felt as though a giant's hand had clutched my neck. I began to lift into the air, and knew I was being sucked up. The stallion broke free from me, but I still continued to rise. Then I was violently clutched by the ankles and hauled down to earth.
Peter dragged me against the bank beside him.
"Stay down!" he bellowed in my ear. "Der windt plows you away."
"But the stallion!"
"All der horses are gone. Idt cannot be helped."
CHAPTER XXIII
MY ORENDA SAVES US
A lightning-bolt exploded with a crash, and a cold, purple radiance briefly illuminated our surroundings. The air was filled with trees, wisps of grass, clods of earth. The distorted bodies of a man and a horse lay against the opposite bank of the depression—'twas they, doubtless, had stampeded our mounts. Apparently they had been hurled there by some caprice of the wind. I had a vision, too, of the strained faces of my comrades—Peter's little eyes very wide, Kachina's hair all tumbled about her face, Tawannears grimly watchful. Then darkness again, and the steady, monotonous roar of the wind, no thing of puffs or gusts, but a stupendous, overpowering blast of sheer strength that no living being could stand up to.