wn up from the road. All are
wet, cramped and uncomfortable; sore and aching from the jolting and
constrained position.

Of this luckless trio, one is a female. Another is a small
wiry-looking, stolid-faced man, who might be a farmer or a transport
rider, and is very likely both. The third is our newly formed
acquaintance, Roden Musgrave.

We have referred to three occupants of this luxurious vehicle. It
boasted a fourth. He, however, was not in like pitiable case. He was
the proud occupier of a seat--a tolerably secure one. Likewise was he
able to indulge in the use of his limbs, and occasional strong
language--this, however, in subdued tone, in deference to the presence
of the lady passenger--untrammelled by the dire necessity of clinging on
for dear life. He was, in fact, the driver. To him the colonial-born
passenger:

"How are our chances of getting through the drift to-night, Henry? The
river must be rolling yards high."

"Chances!" echoed the man--a stalwart fellow whose yellowish skin
betrayed just a strain of native blood, notwithstanding his ruddy and
slightly grizzled beard. "Chances? Ha-ha! No chance at all--no damn
chance. There's nothing to keep you from going _over_ it though."

"How are we going to poll that off?" struck in Roden.

"There's a very good box. Swing you across in no time," replied the
driver, with a grin, and a wink at the colonial man.

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the lady passenger, showing a very white face
beneath the hood of her mackintosh. "I'll never be able to do it.
Those horrible boxes! I know them."

"You've got to do it, Missis, or stay this side!" returned the driver,
with a fiendish grin.

And now as the cart crests another rise, a dull rumbling sound is
audible through splash of hoof and wheel, which, as they draw nearer,
breaks into a booming roar. It is the voice of the swollen river. The
clouds hang low above the scrub, lying, an opaque veil, against the
slopes of the opposite heights; and ever, without a break, the rain
falls steadily down. The colonial man has managed to light a pipe, and,
with characteristic philosophy, smokes steadily and uncomplainingly; an
example Roden Musgrave would fain follow, but that he finds his fair
companion in adversity literally such a handful, that he cannot even get
at his pipe, let alone fill and light it: the fact being that he is
obliged to devote all his energies to holding the latter on her perch,
for so