“We’ll have to lead ’em around through the brush, there.  We can’t budge this boy.”

Scattering rain-drops fell—­huge drops that landed with a thud and splashed broadly.

“Get out the slickers, Bat.  Quick now, or we’re in for a wettin’.”  As he spoke the man stepped to Alice’s side, helped her to the ground, and loosened the pack-strings of her saddle.  A moment later he held a huge oilskin of brilliant yellow, into the sleeves of which the girl thrust her arms.  There was an odour as of burning sulphur and she sniffed the air as she buttoned the garment about her throat.

The Texan grinned:  “Plenty close enough I’ll say, when you get a whiff of the hell-fire.  Better wait here ’til I find a way through the brush.  An’ keep out of reach of the horse’s heels with that slicker on.  You can’t never trust a cayuse, ’specially when they can’t more’n half see.  They’re liable to take a crack at you for luck.”

Grasping his bridle reins the Texan disappeared and by the lightning flashes she could see him forcing his way through the thicket of willows.  The scattering drops changed to a heavy downpour.  The moonlight had long since been obliterated and the short intervals between the lightning flashes were spaces of intense blackness.  A yellow-clad figure scrambled over the tree trunk and the cowboy took the bridle reins from her hand.

“You slip through here.  I’ll take your horse around.”

On the other side, the cowboy assisted her to mount, and pulling his horse in beside hers, led off down the trail.  The rain steadily increased in volume until the flashes of lightning showed only a grey wall of water, and the roar of it blended into the incessant roar of the thunder.  The horses splashed into the creek and wallowed to their bellies in the swirling water.

The Texan leaned close and shouted to make himself heard.

“They don’t make ’em any worse than this.  I’ve be’n out in some considerable rainstorms, take it first an’ last, but I never seen it come down solid before.  A fish could swim anywheres through this.”

“The creek is rising,” answered the girl.

“Yes, an’ we ain’t goin’ to cross it many more times.  In the canyon she’ll be belly-deep to a giraffe, an’ we got to figure a way out of the coulee ’fore we get to it.”

Alice was straining her ears to catch his words, when suddenly, above the sound of his voice, above the roar of the rain and the crash and roll of thunder, came another sound—­a low, sullen growl—­indefinable, ominous, terrible.  The Texan, too, heard the sound and, jerking his horse to a standstill, sat listening.  The sullen growl deepened into a loud rumble, indescribably horrible.  Alice saw that the Texan’s face was drawn into a tense, puzzled frown.  A sudden fear gripped her heart.  She leaned forward and the words fairly shrieked from her lips.

“It’s the reservoir!”