The poor
animal struggled so violently at times that they had no easy task of it;
but at last the tree fell over, and we got the horse's leg free. It was
broken, however, and he could not get up.
As to the others, it was hard to say, there in the night and storm, what
we ought to do for them. In the woods a horse with a broken leg is
little better than dead, and in mercy is usually put out of its misery.
We knew that the four horses lying there were very seriously injured,
and Asa thought that we ought to put an end to their sufferings. But
Addison and I could not bring ourselves to kill them, and we went to ask
Tommy's advice.
The old man was pottering about the scoot, trying to recover his traps
and gun. He hobbled down to the brink of the chasm and peered over at
the disabled animals; but "I vum, I dunno," was all that we could get
from him in the way of advice.
At last we brought the horse blankets from the scoot and put them over
the suffering creatures to protect them from the storm. In their efforts
to get up, however, the animals thrashed about constantly, and the
blankets did not shelter them much. We had no idea where the horses were
that had run away.
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