One moment the crystal air had been so still that the click of the iron hoofs of their horses seemed to be the only sound in the world.

The next minute the roar of breaking trees and falling rocks echoed like an earthquake and a white cloud of misty snow and flying icicles hid the steel-blue heavens.
It was done in such a fragment and flash of time that Broussard hardly knew what had happened.

He found himself standing on his feet, entangled in the frozen branches of a fir tree.

A little way off he heard Gamechick, whinnying with fear, while under a fallen boulder Colonel Fortescue's horse lay, his neck broken.

Close by Colonel Fortescue lay stark upon the ground.