Читать книгу With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps онлайн

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We had crossed all the streams but the last, and were within a few yards of the further bank of that, when our horse, poor old Nipper, sank in a quicksand, and as soon as the current caught his body we saw it was all up. The horse and buggy got broadside on to the current, and quick as thought we jumped for it, just as the conveyance was turning over for the first time, Fox down-stream and I up.

The first thing I knew was that I was being washed into the bottom parts of the buggy, then sideways up, but struggling out and gaining a footing, the first impulse was to whip out my pocket-knife and cut the horse free, and, in my haste, both blades were broken before a stitch of the harness was cut. Fox, in the meanwhile, recovered his feet, and was holding Nipper’s head above water as we all moved gradually down-stream with the force of the current, the horse and buggy rolling over and over. With Fox’s knife I was more successful, and cut the horse free. Fortunately we were being washed into shallower water on a spit of shingle, and we were able to wade out with the horse, after which we returned to extricate the buggy, which had come to a standstill on its side, and was fast being silted up with moving shingle. It required all our strength to free it, and in doing so one of the wheels ‘buckled.’