shakes a rat it has captured. The men could not rush in, because the other
horse was on the outside of the team and was kicking and struggling to
free itself from the shrieking stallion. Every team attached to the
machine was tearing at its moorings, and horrified as the men were they
were obliged to attempt to control the other horses. The team immediately
in front of the stallion broke away altogether, carrying away with it the
reach to which it was fastened. Seeing his opportunity, Joe Farnshaw
rushed into the space left open by the disappearance of the other team,
and with a well-directed blow from an iron bar he had snatched up, he
staggered the horse so that it dropped the nerveless thing it had been
shaking, and stood stunned and trembling, sight, sound, and all other
matters of sense gone. The body was snatched away from in front of the
tottering horse in time to save it from the heavy weight of the falling
animal, which began to tremble, and then, losing control of its legs
altogether, fell heavily toward the platform, dragging its mate to her
knees as it went.

Elizabeth quieted her shrieking mother as best she could while she hugged
her rescued child to her bosom, and the sons of Josiah Farnshaw helped the
men to lay the broken body of their father upon an improvised stretcher to
be removed to the house. Kind hands performed the little duties necessary
on such occasions, and then the horrified men stayed on, gathered in
little groups about the dead stallion in the stackyard.

When all was done and the family were reduced to that terrorizing state of
idleness which comes to those who stand about their dead, Elizabeth took
Jack and wandered out of the house to where she could see Joe standing
near the well. Together they glanced across to the men standing around the
torn and dismantled horsepower.

"Pa was like that horse, Joe," Elizabeth said with a sudden gleam of
insight. "They were both ruled by unbridled passions. Everything they did
they mixed up with hate. You couldn't touch either of them without having
them lay back their ears."

CHAPTER XXVIII

"TILL DEATH DO YOU PART" CONSIDERED

The day after Josiah Farnshaw was buried, Elizabeth sat down to answer
John's letter. It was not easy to do, and she sat for a long time with her
chin in her hand before she began to write. The death of her father
related to the things of which she must speak. She began by telling him
the circumstances of her