. Almost before it was clear what
had happened, the horses were on a full run down the field, with a
barbed-wire fence ahead. Hugh could do but one thing. He circled them
about toward the outside of the field by the one line he could control,
while he frantically jammed the lever down, which threw the machine out of
gear, but at the speed at which the machine was going the lever would not
act. The one line swung the horses around in a short circle, and as the
thoroughly alarmed man raised his head he was horrified to find that
Elizabeth, encumbered with the jug, and so thoroughly frightened that she
held on to it and to Jack's hand with equal tenacity, was within the
radius of the circle.

The baby, the mother, and the heavy water-jug were in the centre of that
narrowing ring, and the natural and spontaneous thing to do was to run in
the direction away from the careening harvester. They ran, but only for a
few yards, for by the time they thought that they were nearing a point of
safety at the circumference of the circle, the horses were nearing that
point also, and to attempt to cross it was suicidal.

"Go back!" shouted Hugh, his whole body breaking into a cold sweat as the
woman and child turned to run in the opposite direction.

Had presence of mind been possible at that moment, Elizabeth could have
slipped quickly behind the binder and passed outside the ring the charging
animals were making, but as it was, she simply ran blindly back once more
to another and more dangerous point inside their lessening orbit. One more
such run and both mother and child would be exhausted.

With the cold sweat of terror breaking over him, Hugh Noland slackened his
hold on the line and flung himself off the high seat to run to her
assistance. As he jumped, the horses of their own accord turned sharper
yet, and the bull-wheel, striking a badger hole, threw the machine over
sidewise and completely upside down. The wheel horses, released by the
coupling-pin falling from the main clevis, kicked themselves loose from
the other team and tore madly across the uncut grain.

Elizabeth Hunter escaped death by the overturning of the heavy binder, but
when she arrived at the twisted and broken harvester, Hugh Noland lay
pinned under the wreckage, white and insensible.

It took but a few moments for the men, who had come running at the first
sounds of the commotion, to lift the heavy machinery from the limp body
and lay the wounded man down u