"Stay where you are! Don't attempt to move! It can't last much longer!" he shouted, holding Rupert down by main force now, for those tossing horns were such a frightful menace, and the mob of cattle pressed close on either side as they poured past the overturned wagon in their mad flight towards the hills.
"Oh, Rumple, what has happened? Is it an earthquake?" cried Nealie, who was somewhat reassured by hearing Rumple shout to Rupert. At least the boys were all alive, though, judging by the noise Don and Billykins were making, some of them might be rather badly damaged.
"I don't think that it is anything except the cattle on the move, only they are going as if they have been pretty badly scared," replied Rumple, trying to stand up by hanging on to the wagon wheel. Then he cried out sharply: "Look out, Nealie! Get in under the tilt quick, for here come a fresh lot! Oh, I say, we shall all be smashed flat!"
It really looked as if they would be flattened out, for the next lot of cattle, charging down the steep hillside, came straight for the camp, and but for a lucky accident would most likely have gone straight over the wagon, which lay on its side. But one big bullock caught its long horns in the spokes of the wheel, the next blundered on to it and forced it to its knees, another blundered on to that, until in about a minute and a half there was piled up a most effectual rampart of struggling beasts, which effectually checked the onrush from behind, diverting it to either side.
It was to this accident that some, at least, of the seven owed their lives, for Don and Billykins lay right in the path of the stampeding herd, while Rupert, scrambling painfully to his feet, would most certainly have been knocked down and trampled underfoot.
But the noise and the confusion, the snorting, bellowing, and blowing of all those hundreds of terrified beasts, were quite beyond description. After the first frightened outcry Ducky lay still and shivering in the arms of Sylvia, who was sitting on the side of the wagon tilt, amid the ruins of crockery and the contents of the grocery box, which had been spilled all over her. Nealie had crawled to the front opening of the tilt, and, regardless of her possible danger, had succeeded in fishing Don and Billykins from the debris of canvas and torn mattress under which they were being slowly smothered, and had dragged them into the comparative safety of the overturned wagon. Then Rupert and Rumple struggled into the same refuge, and the seven sat close together, wondering what was going to happen next, while the wild uproar raged on around them, and it seemed as if the rush of cattle would never cease.
"There must have been thousands and thousands of cattle that have gone past," said Rupert, rubbing his lips with his hand before he ventured to speak, because of the thick dust upon them.
"I should think that every one of those great mobs we have been passing all day must have turned round and bolted back by the way they came," said Sylvia. "But what I don't understand is how it came about that the wagon was bowled over."
"That is my fault," groaned Nealie. "I made Rocky back it on to the slope, because I thought that we should be more sheltered from the terrible wind, and I knew that the boys would not be in so much danger of a wetting if it rained. Then the cattle, charging down the side of the hill in the dark, must have blundered up against the wagon and just bowled it over. They are so big and clumsy, you see, and when once they start there is no stopping them. Now, if the wagon is badly damaged, we shall be put to no end of expense because of my carelessness."
"But it was not carelessness if you did it for our comfort, and it is no use thinking that the wagon is badly damaged, and getting worried about it, until you know," said Rupert. "Of course we can't do anything towards finding out, or putting it straight, until morning, for we might only make matters worse, and invite more disaster still."