'The creek will be twenty feet deep where the road crosses it now,' said Pollie. 'If he comes to it he will have to swim. He will never think of its being so deep, and he might be drowned. I knew something would happen. What a lucky thing he took Guardsman!'
As she spoke her mother pointed to a spot where the track crossed the creek. The road itself was now plainly marked as a sepia-coloured, brown line winding through the grassless, herbless, grey levels of the drought-stricken waste. A horseman was riding at speed along the clearly printed track, through the misty lines of fast-falling rain.
'It is Bertram coming back,' cried Pollie. 'I know Guardsman's long stride; how he is throwing the dirt behind him! I wouldn't mind the ride myself if I had an old habit on. It must be great fun to be as wet as he must be, and to know one cannot be any worse. Do you think he will try to swim the creek?'
'He does not seem to dream of pulling up,' said Mrs. Devereux. 'Very likely he thinks it can't be deep when he crossed dry-shod this morning.'
'Oh, look!' cried the girl, with a long-drawn inspiration. 'He has ridden straight in without stopping. What a plunge! They are both over head and ears in it. But Guardsman swims well. Mr. Gateward told me he saw him in the last flood, when he was only a colt. I can see his head; how he shakes it! Gallant old fellow! And there is Bertram sitting as quietly as if he was on dry land. They will be carried down lower, but it is good shelving land on this side. Now they are out, rather staggering, but safe. Thank God for that! Oh, mother are you not glad?'
As Bertram and the brown made joint entrance to the square opposite the stable-yard, dripping like a sea-horse bestridden by a merman, he saw a feminine figure in the verandah of the barracks gesticulating wildly to him, and in a fashion demanding to be heard.
'Mother says you are to come in directly and change your clothes and take something hot, and not to stay out a moment longer than you can help.'
'I must see Guardsman made snug first,' answered the young man, with the same immovable quiet voice, in which not the slightest inflection betrayed any hint of unusual risk. 'I really couldn't answer it to my conscience to turn him out to-night. I won't be long, however.'
'When it does rain here it rains hard, I must admit!' said Mr. Devereux an hour afterwards, as, completely renovated and very carefully attired, he presented himself at dinner. 'Could not have imagined such a transformation scene of earth and sky. The plain has become a gigantic batter pudding, and the ludicrous attempt at a brook—the Wawanoo Creek—is a minor Mississippi. I thought the old horse would have been swept right down once.'