“Say,” bellowed Darby, “d’you think that ’orse o’ mine ’ad a presentingment that he was goin’ to be drowned?” And the others pressed on and left him to ponder the problem.
They were winning near to the township now, and the “Fly-on-a-Wall” was the only desperately bad bit of the track left. They took it dismounted and with the greatest caution, but for all their caution Scottie’s horse went.
The Fly-on-a-Wall is a narrow ledge winding along the face of the cliff that runs alongside the Creek, and the solid rock path was slimy wet and dangerous, and the horses went up with glancing hoofs and sides pressed hard in to the rock wall, snorting and cowering back with glaring eyes from the plummet-drop over the edge to the rocks and the gleaming water below.
Scottie’s horse slipped, and its feet shot from under it, and it came down with a thump and a crash, and lay kicking with its legs right over the edge.
Scottie yelled and braced himself, and lay back hauling on the reins, and Steve edged back past his horse to help.
The fallen horse struggled wildly, but it slipped further, and its haunches slid over till its hind legs were dangling clear. Even then it hung on its chest and forelegs on the path, and its hind legs hammering and scraping at the cliff face. It slid again, despite Scottie’s efforts, and as Steve grabbed at the reins, it still slid slowly. They had to let go or go over with it, and the horse slid again, with starting eyeballs and quivering nostrils. Then it vanished with a blood-curdling scream, that shut off suddenly. The men heard the body crash on the stones below, and then silence except for the brawling of the river and the rush of the rain.
Steve dashed the rain from his eyes and ran back to his horse. “Follow on, Scottie,” he called. “It isn’t far.”
When he rode off the Fly-on-a-Wall and out on to the crest of the last hill that overlooked the river and the township, he caught for the first time the full, deep, sullen roar of the flooded river. He halted and strained his eyes into the darkness, and then with an oath flung down the hillside, slithering, plunging, and spattering, till he came to the water, and realised with a sudden swirl of fear that it was right over the banks.
But he could see the gleam of the light on the end of the bridge, and drove desperately for that, and came through to it, this time without swimming, although the water rose to his saddle-flaps as he rode.
The bridge was built on trestles, and rested on high banks on both sides of the river, but the water was a bare six foot below the planks of the roadway, and, with a sinking heart, he knew that this meant that there would be little or none of the high ground left uncovered on the flats of Coolongolong.