It was not till next morning that the boys saw that the tornado had completely upset their plans. During the few terrible minutes of the storm, and for an hour afterwards, till sleep finally claimed them again, excitement drove all thoughts of the future clean away. But when they awoke late next morning, and looked out at the sky, which was blue and without a cloud, and across the sandy street at the collection of iron station buildings and the train by which they had arrived and which still stood waiting, and saw, beyond and around everything, the tremendous stretches of yellow sand already blazing in the heat, the affairs of the night seemed only a dream.
The reality of things was suddenly brought home to them when Peter came into the room with a cheery, "Good morning! How're you getting on?"
Both boys were feeling fine and said so, and then their friend told them: "You'd better hurry on a bit. The train starts back for town in about an hour."
Sax was using the towel at the time, and when he heard what Peter said, he stopped rubbing his face and looked at him in surprise.
"Back to town!" he exclaimed. "But we don't want to go back to town. We're going on to Oodnadatta."
"Going on to Oodnadatta, are you?" asked Peter, with a smile. "And how are you going to get there?"
"Why, by train, of course," broke in Vaughan. Then suddenly the events of the night appeared to him in a new light. "That is—of course—if it's running," he stammered.
"It's not running," said Peter. "And you take it from me, it won't run for a month or two. The tornado smashed the Dingo Creek bridge and tore up the line this side of it, too. Besides, the Long Cutting's full of sand. It'll take them a couple of weeks to clean that out."
The boys were too much amazed to speak. They looked at one another in blank dismay. They were indeed in a fix. Drover Stobart waiting for them in Oodnadatta, and here they were in Hergott Springs, and no chance of getting out of it for a month or two. Whatever were they to do?
Their bushman friend did not leave them long in uncertainty. He was a simple-hearted kindly man, and he could see by the boys' faces what they were thinking about. So he interrupted their gloomy thoughts by suggesting: