The beast flung its head up, and next moment they were flying at a gallop down the winding and almost precipitous trail.

Alton's strength had not returned to him, and he set his lips, realizing the uselessness of it as he shifted his numbed hands on the bridle.

Twice the horse stumbled, but picked up its stride again, and the man had almost commenced to hope they might reach the foot of the declivity when it stumbled once more, struck a young fir, and reeled downwards from the trail.
It all happened in a moment, but there was just time enough for Alton to clear his feet from his stirrups, and though he was never quite sure what next he did he found himself sitting in the snow, shaken and dazed by his fall, while the horse rolled downwards through the shadows beneath him.

He heard the brushwood crackle, and then a curiously sickening thud as though something soft had fallen from a height upon a rock.

After that there was an oppressive silence save for a faint drumming that grew louder down the trail.
Alton unslung the rifle which still hung behind him, and crawled behind a big hemlock that grew out of the slope.