“Well, we’ve got them here by the tree, and when we have to mount up among the branches we can turn them loose,” answered his cousin.
“But, Dick, if they have to go, poor things, why make it harder for them?”
“I see what you mean, Roger; you think we ought to cut the ropes now, and let them swim for the shore. It does you credit, too; but I hardly believe it would work.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” asked Roger.
“For this reason,” came the reply. “Horses are affectionate. They get accustomed to people, and these ones know us well, because we’ve raised them from colts. Now, the chances are that, if we turned them loose at this minute, they would refuse to leave us until the water forced them to swim. Even if you pushed one off the island, I feel sure he would try hard to get back again. So what’s the use of turning them loose now?”
“Perhaps that’s so,” admitted Roger. “I was only thinking of giving the poor beasts a better chance to get ashore; because the higher the water rises the harder it will be for them to swim.”
After that they stood watching and waiting; but with only the most dismal forebodings as to what was to come. And indeed it was anything but pleasant to think of being made prisoners in a tree that would be completely surrounded by a raging flood, perhaps for another night and day. And then the loss of their horses was going to make their task of overtaking the expedition all the harder.
So the morning passed, and while on several occasions Roger indulged in new hopes that the water had come to a stand at last, these were only fated to be dashed to the ground on his next anxious inspection of his “tally stick,” when he learned that the flood was actually making up for lost time.
“How much longer will we have, Dick?” he asked, when, for the third time, he had made this unpleasant discovery.
“At the rate it seems to be crawling up our stake, it will only be two hours until the water will be at the foot of this tree,” replied the other, who had already figured all this out.