“If the river keeps rising it’ll be deepening every hour,” said the boss. “Don’t waste time when you start, or it’ll be over the buggy floor.”
“I’ll push ’em at it,” said Dolly, cheerfully.
“Horses all right?” said the boss. “Fairly fit and strong?”
“Strong as steam engines,” said Dolly, confidently. “They’ve had a feed now, and they’ll rattle us back in no time.”
“Be off with you, then,” said the boss. “Tell Mackellar I’ll be over in a day or two. Good-bye, Miss Lincoln, and thank you for staying—and for the luck-bringer.”
“Good-bye,” she cried; “and the luck isn’t finished yet, you see,” and she waved her hand as Dolly pulled the pair round.
“Isn’t this rippin’, Miss Ess?” he said, as they pelted on at a sharp trot. “Listen to the wheels churnin’ through the mud, and the horses’ feet slop-sloppin’ in it. Great, isn’t it?”
“Fine,” she agreed enthusiastically, and then laughed. “It’s so funny to think this way about rain, Dolly. I’ve always been with people and in places where the rain was voted rather a bore. Spoilt the picnics, and boating, and so on, and made the streets messy, and greasy, and dirty. And now I’d just love to get down and splash through mud and water up to the ankles.”
“It surprised me at first when I came out here,” said Dolly. “I was down in the cities a spell at first, y’ know, and I wondered a good deal at the cheerful way men used to go about and smack each other on the back and say ‘Fifty points of rain at Bourke, old chap,’ or ‘The Paroo’s in flood—good business, eh,’ and that sort of thing. But I found, when I got here, that rain here means money, and money here means money in the cities by an’ by. And money makes the cheerfuls go round, y’ know.”
“I haven’t had time to think of the moneys,” she said. “It’s just the country, and the sheep, and—oh, everything.”