tone, without a moment's warning,
and hurled into the midst of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to
the depths of the gap,--a thousand feet below! And at what time had this
dread fate befallen his friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads'
store, when he had paused on his way to warm himself that morning, some
gossip was detailing the phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the
previous night, while others protested that it must have been only
the clamors of "Christmas guns" firing all along the country-side. "A
turrible clap, it was," the raconteur had persisted. "Sounded ez ef all
creation hed split apart." Perhaps, therefore, the catastrophe might be
recent. Kennedy could scarcely command his muscles as he dismounted and
made his way slowly and cautiously to the verge.

Any deviation from the accustomed routine of nature has an unnerving
effect, unparalleled by disaster in other sort; no individual danger or
doom, the aspect of death by drowning, or gunshot, or disease, can so
abash the reason and stultify normal expectation. Kennedy was scarcely
conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the landslide, scattered from
the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap--inverted
roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven
asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown
streams newly liberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from
the crevices of the rocks. In effect he could not believe his own eyes.
His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart
suddenly plunged with a wild hope,--he had discerned amongst the turmoil
a shape of line and rule, the little box-like hut! Caught as it was in
the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out at an
incline a little less than vertical, the inmates might have been spared
such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. Had the
house been one of the substantial log-cabins of the region its timbers
must have been torn one from another, the daubing and chinking scattered
as mere atoms. But the more flimsy character of the little dwelling
had thus far served to save it,--the interdependent "framing" of its
structure held fast; the upright studding and boards, nailed stoutly on,
rendered it indeed the box that it looked. It was, so to speak, built in
one piece, and no part was subjected to greater strain than another.
But should the earth cave anew, s