rboard.

As the clumsy craft swung loose the very next instant, the colt was
dragged along in her wake, and would have ended his adventures then and
there but for the readiness of the man. Forgetting for an instant his
own terrible plight, he drew his knife and slashed the rope. Thus
released, the colt got his head above water and made a valiant struggle
toward the shore, which was now not five yards away.

All that he could do in the grip of that mad flood was, needless to say,
very little, but it chanced to be enough, for it brought him within the
grasp of a strong eddy. A moment later he was dashed violently into
shoal water. As he fought to a footing he saw the scow wallowing away
down the torrent. Then he found himself, he knew not how, on dry land.
The falls roared behind him. They might, it seemed, rush up at any
instant and clutch him again. Blind and sick with panic, he dashed into
the woods, and went galloping and stumbling straight inland. At last he
sank trembling in the deep grass of a little brookside meadow.

Being of sturdy stock, the brown colt soon recovered his wind. Then,
feeling nervous in the loneliness of the woods and the deepening
shadows, he snatched a few mouthfuls of grass and started to try and
find his way home. Obeying some deep-seated instinct, he set his face
aright, and pushed forward through the thick growths.

His progress, however, was slow. Among the trees the twilight was now
gathering, and the dark places filled his young heart with vague but
dreadful apprehensions, so that at every few steps he would stop and
stare backward over his shoulder. Presently he came out upon another
open glade, and cheered by the light, he followed this glade as long as
it seemed to lead in the right direction. Once a wide-winged, noiseless
shadow sailed over his head, and he shied with a loud snort of terror.
He had never before seen an owl. And once he jumped back wildly, as a
foraging mink rustled through the herbage just before him. But for all
the alarms that kept his baby heart quivering, he pressed resolutely
forward, longing for the comfort of his mother's flank, and the familiar
stall in the barn above the ferry.

As he reached the end of the glade his apprehensive ears caught a
curious sound, a sort of dry rustling, which came from the fringe of the
undergrowth. He halted, staring anxiously at the place the strange sound
came from. Immediately before him was the prostrate and rotting trun