A man brushed roughly past him and seized the bridle of the fallen horse.
"Quick!—if you've got a knife, comrade, cut the traces!" he yelled. "Fast now! We've got to get them out of this. And watch yourself, or it's good-night!"
"I know it," muttered Don.
He took out his knife. A sharp, quick slash, and one of the leather traces was cut in two. Then the keen-bladed instrument ripped its way through another. And from that moment the aviator's son was constantly in the midst of the greatest excitement and danger.
Now he was cutting the traces; now helping to urge the horses to one side; now tugging hard at a bridle, jerked this way and that, or lifted bodily off his feet, perhaps to get a fleeting glimpse by means of a bluish glare of lightning of a great head with foaming mouth, distended nostrils and glaring eyes rearing high above him and to feel the hot breath of the animal upon his cheek. More than once he was violently bumped and almost sent to his knees.
The constant shuffling of feet, the pounding of hoofs, the loud rough voices of men raised in harsh yells and commands and the accompaniment of rolling, booming thunder and bursting shells seemed in Don Hale's mind to form a part of some strange, wild fantasy rather than of actual reality.
At last, however, the war in the roadway was at an end; one by one the horses capitulated to superior intelligence and skill and were led aside. Only those which lay helpless where they had fallen remained to be attended to.
The aviator's son, quite exhausted, his head still throbbing violently, felt compelled to rest. Every joint and muscle in his body seemed to be aching. A dull pain caused by the repeated concussions was in his ears. And then:
"Tres pressé! Tres pressé!"
The words, shaping themselves in his mind again, fell from his lips.