A yard or two farther and the brown horse and his burden must have gone over the terrible drop, as straight as a plumb-line, on to the awful rocks below.

We could see where the brown had torn up the turf as he struck all four hoofs deep into it at once.

Indeed, he had been newly shod, a freak of Jim's about a bet with a travelling blacksmith.

Then the other tracks, the long score on the brink--over the brink--where the frightened, maddened animal had made an attempt to alter her speed, all in vain, and had plunged over the bank and the hundred feet of fall.
We peered over, and saw a bright-coloured mass among the rocks below--very still.

Just at the time one of the ration-carriers came by with a spring cart.