After they passed through the next fence and trotted some distance in the next paddock, Ess pointed.
“Are those trees?” she asked. “Or another mirage?”
“They’re trees,” said the boss; “dead ones. There’s quite a clump of them, and nobody knows where they came from. They grew where there wasn’t a sign of one before, and died in a couple of years. It was the rain that brought them up. It’s fair wonderful what the rain brings up at times, and how quick. You wouldn’t think now to look round you that a week’s good rain would be enough to fetch the grass out up to your knees. But I’ve seen the time when the kangaroo grass came to my waist, and me sitting in the saddle. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever see Coolongolong green again,” he finished with a little sigh.
“Why, surely, Mr. Sinclair,” said Ess. “It must rain before very long now.”
“There’s no must about that out here,” said the boss. “It mightn’t rain enough to spoil a lady’s silk dress in the next twelve months. It mightn’t rain a good heavy shower in the next five years or twenty-five for all we know, though that would be worse than is ever likely. Five is easy possible, though. And, then again, it might start to-night, little and all as it looks like it, and not stop for a month. We’re fifteen miles from the nearest bend of the river here, but I’ve seen it flooded and running like a river over this very paddock. You spoke of it looking like a sea, but I’ve seen it like a sea—water from one horizon to the other.”
“Let’s hope we’ll see it again,” said Ess, brightly, “although not if it’s going to flood Coolongolong out. I’d rather be in the hills then.”
The boss smiled at her. “The home station stands higher than ever a flood has reached yet,” he said, “but I’d be glad enough to see it washing round the walls of it to-morrow. I could build another one if I wanted, with the money that would mean. There it is amongst the trees now—can you see?”
“How beautifully green the trees are,” cried Ess. “They look so cool and refreshing, too.”
“Yes,” said the boss, proudly. “And I can give you fresh fruit and green vegetables for your dinner to-night, and you can walk on grass as thick and soft as velvet in the garden. And it’s all the work of man’s hands, and I’ve watched every blade and leaf grow. I put an oil engine pump in, and we carry the water from the river by a pipe.”
“Why did you put the house so far from the river?” said Ess. “I should have thought it would have been so much nicer right on the banks.”