“Ladies are seldom judicious with horses,” answered Broussard, agreeing as always with Colonel Fortescue.  “I shall be glad to ride the old horse once more, and thank you very much.”

In a few minutes, the Colonel’s own horse was brought and the two men, mounting, rode off and away from the post for an hour’s brisk ride in the late winter afternoon.

Broussard, whose tongue was usually frozen to the roof of his mouth when he was in the Colonel’s presence, felt a sudden sense of freedom and talked naturally and therefore intelligently.  His description of military affairs in the East was wonderfully illuminating, and the Colonel plied him with questions.  They were so interested in their talk that they reached the spur of the mountain ranges before they knew it.  The crisp air had got into their blood and into that of their horses, which took the mountain road sharply, and at an eager trot.  They had climbed a good mile along the steep winding road, the snow under their feet frozen as hard as stone, the rocks ice-coated, and the fir trees like great trees of crystal.  Gamechick was so sure-footed that Broussard gave him the reins but Colonel Fortescue watched his horse carefully.

Ahead of them was a sudden turn in the road under the great overhanging cliff, and on it, a magnificent fir tree reared itself, glittering with icicles, in the rose-red light of the sunset.

“Look,” said Colonel Fortescue, pointing to the tree.  “Was there ever anything more beautiful?”

As the words left his lips he saw, and Broussard saw, a huge boulder suddenly start down the mountain side and strike like a cannon ball the splendid tree.  There was a fearful breaking and splintering and all at once it was as if the cliff crumbled and trees and boulders and ice and snow came thundering and crashing down into the roadway.  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.  Broussard ran to him; he was lying upon his back and said as coolly as if on dress parade: 

“I had a pretty close shave, but I don’t think I’m hurt, except my ankle.”

Broussard, having had experience with injured men, thumped and punched the Colonel only to find that he was not injured in any way except the broken ankle; but a man with a broken ankle, six miles away from the fort, with night coming on, and the thermometer below zero, presents problems.