But see! He is but half-way across when, in the interval between the thunder peals, he can hear a steady rumbling roar away up the creek and gulley, but coming closer and closer every moment.
On, on, on, good Tell! Splash through that stream quicker than ever you went before, or far down the country to-morrow morning two swollen corpses will be seen floating on the floods!
Bewildered by the dashing rain, and the mist that rose on every side, Archie and his trusty steed had but reached high ground when down came the bore.
A terrible sight, though but dimly seen. Fully five feet high, it seemed to carry everything before it. Alas! for flocks and herds. Archie could see white bodies and black, tumbling and trundling along in the rolling “spate.”
The floods continued for days. And when they abated then losses could be reckoned. Though dead cattle and sheep now lay in dozens about the flat lands near the creek, only a small percentage of them belonged to Burley.
Higher up Findlayson had suffered, and many wild cattle helped to swell the death bill.
But it was bad enough.
However, our young squatters were not the men to sit down to cry over spilt milk.
The damage was repaired, and the broken dams were made new again. And these last were sadly wanted before the summer went past. For it was unusually hot, the sun rising in a cloudless sky, blazing down all day steadily, and setting without even a ray being intercepted by a cloud.