CHAPTER IV.
NEARLY a year had passed, and still no rain other than a few shattered showers, which mostly fell about the homestead. Reports were plentiful, though, of “‘heavy downfalls’? and ‘‘terrible big storms’? way ont, on Wild Bee Creek, or somewhere down along the Candamine, But they were only rumours, ov the misinterpretations by stockmen of what members of ahoriginal tribes roaming round on hunting expeditions had to say about the weather, or state of the country. And nothing that one knows of was more unreliable than ‘‘information’’ derived from the blacks coneerning rain, grass, er the country,
Se the drought continued to increase its grip upon the land. The days were lot and fierce—every new day sceming worse than the one before it. The ereeks on most parts of Ruunibede were rapidly givine out, necessitating mustering and reouoving of mobs to more favoured spots. Still they were hanging out pretty well, though what another couple of months would ineau, no man just then could tell. But an inch or two of ram might fall any day, aud settle all doubt and anxiety.
“*T don’t know what to think of it, I’m sure,’? I remember the Governor would say, when remarking on the outlook to Eustace and the other stoekmen. ‘*No one seeing this country a couple of years ago would have thought it possible for it to look as it
does now.’ 82
