“There’s no way of getting round,” he said.  “I suppose six horses ought to haul one wagon through that sloo.”

“It looks a bit doubtful,” Grierson objected.  “We mightn’t be able to pull her out if she got in very deep.  We could dump half the load and come back for it.”

“And make four journeys?  It’s not to be thought of; two’s a good deal too many.”

They yoked the three teams to the first wagon, which promptly sank a long way up its high wheels, and while the men waded nearly knee-deep at their heads, the straining horses made thirty or forty yards.  Then Edgar sank over the top of his long boots and the hub of one wheel got ominously low.

“They’ve done more than one could have expected; I hate to use the whip, but we must get out of this before she goes in altogether,” he said.

Grierson nodded.  He was fond of his horses, which were obviously distressed, and flecked with spume and lather where the traces chafed their wet flanks; but to be merciful would only increase their task.

The whip-cracks rang out like pistol-shots; and, splashing, snorting, struggling, amid showers of mire, they drew the wagon out of its sticky bed.  They made another dozen yards; and then Grierson turned the horses into one of the embayments where there was brush that would support the wheels.  Edgar sat down, breathless, upon a fallen trunk.

“People at home have two quite unfounded ideas about this country,” he said disgustedly.  “The first is that money is easily picked up here—­which doesn’t seem to need any remark; the second is that they have only to send over the slackers and slouchers to reform them.  In my opinion, a few doses of this kind of thing would be enough to fill them with a horror of work.”  He replaced the pipe he had taken out.  “It’s a pity, Grierson, but we can’t sit here and smoke.”

They went on and nearly capsized the wagon in a pool, the bottom of which was too soft to give them foothold while they held up the vehicle, but they got through it and one or two others, and presently came out, dripping from the waist down, on to the drier prairie.  Then Edgar turned and viewed their track.

“It won’t bear much looking at; we had better unyoke,” he said.  “If anybody had told me in England that I’d ever flounder through a place like that, I’d—­”

He paused, seeking for words to express himself fittingly.

“You’d have called him a liar,” Grierson suggested.

“That hardly strikes me as strong enough,” Edgar laughed.

They had spent two hours in the bluff when they brought the last load through, and sitting down in a patch of scrub they took out their lunch.  After a while Edgar flung off his badly splashed hat and jacket and lay down in the sunshine.

“The thing’s done; the pity is it must be done again to-morrow,” he remarked, “In the meanwhile, we’ll forget it; I’ll draw a veil over my feelings.”