“Hi, some o’ you,” roared Darby. “There’s a midge ridin’ a moskeeter down the track ahead o’ me. Take ’im away, someone, afore I treads on ’im an’ flattens ’im out.”
“Open out a bit there,” yelled Steve. “Take room to fall easy without bringing your mate down”; and the men opened the intervals between them, and one by one squattered down into the Clay Pit.
Whip Thompson rode a little wide of the narrow margin of ridable track, and splashed and floundered girth deep in the soft ground along the edge.
“Hammer ’im out, Whip—hammer ’im out,” shouted the others as they struggled past. “Gimme ’is reins,” said Darby the Bull, pulling up and sliding down into the ankle-deep mess. Whip flung him the reins, and with a heave and a lift and a shout the horse was dragged out. They mounted and plunged on, and drove out into the swamp waters with the splash of a launching battleship.
“Where are ye all?” yelled Darby. “Are ye all drowned?”
“Come on behind,” came a faint shout from the darkness ahead. “Come on an’ have yer merry surf-bathin’. Oo-o-oo! Ain’t that a luvverly roller?”
They wallowed through, and on to the firmer ground, and the litter of rocks and logs that strewed the track. Falls up to now had been a thing to laugh at, for the ground was soft as porridge and a man could hardly hurt. But on the hard track and amongst the stones it was a different thing—a fall there might mean a broken bone, or at best a crippling bruise or sprain. But hard or soft, rock or mud, the men drove forward, galloping where they could, cantering where they could not gallop, and hardly slowing to a less pace than a trot.
“Hupp,” shouted Steve, lifting his horse in a cat-leap over a fallen log, and twisting in the saddle to look back at Scottie. “Can you take it? Jump if he will. The landing this side is good enough.”
Scottie came over with a rush, and one by one the men followed, jumping if the horse would jump, scrambling over anyhow if he would not.
“Gerrup there, Darby,” shouted Jack; “this ain’t a place to be playin’ at see-saw.”