They halted and stood listening. At first they could hear nothing but the seep seep of the rain, the panting of the horses, and the rattle and clink of their bits and harness, and the sucking splash of their feet as they moved uneasily. Then, faint and dull at first, but growing louder even as they listened, there came a low and long-sustained roar like the far-off thunder of surf on a beach. A full five minutes they stood there, and then suddenly a swirl of water splashed foaming about their feet, and a wave washed past them and ran hissing round the buggy wheels.
“It’s the river,” said Dolly, springing back to the buggy. “Up with you, Miss Ess, quick. She’s up and over the banks in earnest now, and we’ll have her running like a mill race presently. We’ve got to hit for the high ground in a hurry.”
Ess scrambled into the buggy, and Dolly Grey gathered the reins and lashed at the horses with his whip.
“Where are you going? How do you know the direction?” asked Ess, anxiously. “You can’t see any high ground, can you? I thought it was all level plain about here.”
“It looks level,” said Dolly, “but it rises in long gentle swells. We ought to be somewhere in One Tree Paddock, and I know that’s high ground because there’s a mark on the tree—a big gum it is—of an old flood that had all the country round here under water.”
“But do you know where it is?” persisted Ess.
“Not a notion,” he said, “nor whether I’m going north, south, east, or west. But I’m leaving the reins slack, and letting the horses have their own way. Their instinct should take them the farthest from the water they can get. And, besides, you’ll notice all the rabbits and things are making back the same way as we’re going.”
He flogged at the horses again, while the roar of the river beat in their ears, and the rain drizzled steadily down. The animals were thick and close about them now, and more than once Ess felt a soft bump and heard the sharp squeal of a rabbit under the wheels.
“Whoa,” shouted Dolly, suddenly. “We’ve hit it, Miss Ess. Hoo-ray—now we’re all right. There’s One Tree, and we’re about as high as we can get without climbing the tree. We may have to do that presently, but we’ll wait and see.”
He got out and unharnessed the horses, and stripped them, and fastened them to the buggy wheel with the reins.