--In The Wilderness

But the thought of this miracle left the man untouched. Only did Joan remember, and offer up her thankfulness. The man was of the wild, he was young, life was with him, life with all its joys and sorrows, all its shadowy possibilities, so he recked nothing of what he had escaped. That was his way.

While Joan's devoted eyes watched the steady light in his, staring out so intently at the wreck of world before him, no word passed her lips. It was as though he were the lord of their fate and she waited his commands.

But for long Buck had no thought for their personal concerns. He forgot even the pains which racked his torn body, he forgot even the regrets which the destruction he now beheld had first inspired him with. He was marveling, he was awed at the thought of those dread elements, those titanic forces he had witnessed at play.

There lay the hideous skeleton picked bare to the bones. Every semblance of the beauty lines, which, in the earth's mature completion, it had worn, had vanished, and only mouldering remains were left. How had it happened? What terrible, or sublime purpose, had been achieved during that night of terror? He could not think.

His eyes dropped to that which lay immediately before him. He was gazing into chaotic depths of torn black rock amidst which a great cascade of water poured out from the bowels of the earth and flowed on to join the waters of Yellow Creek. It was the site where had hung the suspended lake. Half the great hill had been torn away by some terrible subterranean upheaval, which seemed to have solely occurred on that side where the lake had been, and where the hill had confronted the distant camp. Gone were the workings of the miners. Gone was that great bed of auriferous soil. And in their places lay an ocean of rock, so vast, so torn, that the power which had hurled it broadcast was inconceivable to his staggered mind.