The people hurried into the street--they were no more than
seventy souls all told--and in the glare of the torches they
saw their Bhagat holding back the terrified barasingh, while
the monkeys plucked piteously at his skirts, and Sona sat on
his haunches and roared.

"Across the valley and up the next hill!" shouted Purun Bhagat.
"Leave none behind! We follow!"

Then the people ran as only Hill folk can run, for they knew
that in a landslip you must climb for the highest ground across
the valley. They fled, splashing through the little river at
the bottom, and panted up the terraced fields on the far side,
while the Bhagat and his brethren followed. Up and up the
opposite mountain they climbed, calling to each other by name--
the roll-call of the village--and at their heels toiled the big
barasingh, weighted by the failing strength of Purun Bhagat.
At last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pinewood, five
hundred feet up the hillside. His instinct, that had warned him
of the coming slide, told him he would he safe here.

Purun Bhagat dropped fainting by his side, for the chill of the
rain and that fierce climb were killing him; but first he called
to the scattered torches ahead, "Stay and count your numbers";
then, whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a
cluster: "Stay with me, Brother. Stay--till--I--go!"

There was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter, and a mutter
that grew to a roar, and a roar that passed all sense of