He shivered at the idea, for now he could only place this terrible interpretation upon his brother's silence--he must have come to meet him, tried to swim his horse across the river, and have been swept away. That last night was almost sleepless, for whenever the boy dropped off, with the light of the fire they kept up glancing on the canvas, he started back into wakefulness again, wondering whether the river was still going down, or some fancied sound meant a fresh accession to the flood-waters coming down from the mountains. The morning broke at last, and leaping out of the wagon, Dyke ran down toward the river, closely followed by the dog, now nearly recovered, scaring away a buck which had been lurking in the covert, the graceful little creature bounding away before him giving pretty good proof of the satisfactory state of the river by dashing over the thick bed of intervening sand and stones, splashing through the water, and bounding up the other side. The waters were down, leaving a deep bed of sand, and with a place to ford that was evidently not knee-deep. Dyke ran excitedly back, gave his orders, and to Jack's great disgust he had to inspan, mount on the wagon-box, and shout to the oxen to _trek_, the well-rested beasts willingly dragging the wagon through the heavy loose drift and down into the water, which did not rise to the naves of the wheels. It took rather a hard pull to get up the other side, but the difficulty was soon mastered, the bullocks following Breezy, as his master led the way, and in half an hour after starting they were at last well on the road to Kopfontein, whose rocky mound stood up clearly in the morning light. Dyke restrained his impatience a little longer--that is, till the wagon was well on its way over the plain; then touching Breezy's sides he went on ahead at a gallop, the roofing of the house and sheds gradually growing plainer; then there were the ostrich-pens, with a few dimly seen birds stalking about, and object after object coming rapidly into sight. But there was no one visible: there appeared to be no blue thread of smoke rising in the morning air, where Tanta Sal was boiling the kettle; all looked wonderfully still, and had it not been for the ostriches here and there, Dyke would have been disposed to think the place was deserted. On, still nearer and nearer, but no one appeared, and again still nearer, and his lips parted to utter a loud shout to announce his coming. But somehow the cry froze in his throat, and he dared not utter it; the place was deserted, he felt sure. Tanta Sal must have gone off to seek her tribe after the terrible catastrophe, for Dyke felt sure now that his surmise was right, and that Emson had been drowned in trying to ford the river and come to meet him.