On resuming the journey in the morning, Barbara urged the teamsters to their best endeavors, reinforcing her plea for haste with a promise of a tempting money reward for each of them if they should complete the journey that day.
The drivers did their mightiest to earn the reward, but the difficulties in the way proved to be much greater than even they had anticipated. For the two great rivers had at last broken over their banks and their waters were already spreading over the face of the land. The country through which the road ran was slightly rolling. The small hillocks were secure from overflow at any time, but the low-lying spaces between them were already under water, the depth of which varied from a few inches to two or three feet. The soft earth of the roadbed was now a mere quagmire, through which the horses laboriously dragged the wagons hub deep in mud.
Worse still were those stretches of road which had been corduroyed with logs. For there some of the logs were floating out of place, and some were piled on top of those that were still held fast in the mud.
In dragging the wagons through the mud reaches, it was necessary to stop every few minutes to give the horses a breathing spell. On the corduroy stretches it was often necessary to stop for half an hour or more at a time, while the drivers and Bob, wading knee deep, made such repairs as were possible and absolutely necessary.
Bob, with his habitual exuberance of spirit, enjoyed all this mightily. The drivers did not enjoy it at all. Several times, indeed, they wanted to abandon the attempt, declaring that it was impossible to go farther. But for Barbara's persuasive urgency, they would have unhitched the horses and gone home, leaving the wagons to such fate as might overtake them. As it was, the caravan moved slowly onward, with many haltings and much of weariness.
It was midnight when, at last, the flare of the torches told Barbara that the journey was done. Not knowing whither the wagons should be taken, Barbara bade Bob go and find Duncan.
When the young man heard of Barbara's arrival, he and Dick Temple hurried to her, full of apprehension lest the journey and the exposure should have made her ill, and fuller still of fear that the conditions of life in the camp might prove to involve more of hardship than she could bear. For the first time in his life, Guilford Duncan felt like scolding.
"What on earth are you doing here, Barbara?" he asked, and before he could add anything to the question, she playfully answered:
"Just now, I'm waiting for you to tell the teamsters where to drive the wagons."
"But Barbara——"