The north wind, so long imprisoned, had broke loose, and the boughs were crashing, and the trees were falling, before the majesty of his wrath.
I ran out, and met James in the verandah.

"It's all up," I said.

"Get the women and children into the river, and let the men go up to windward with the sheep-skins.

[Note: Sheep-skins, on sticks, used for beating out the fire when in short grass.] I'll get on horseback, and go out and see how the Morgans get on.

That obstinate fellow will wish he had come in now." Morgan was a stockman of ours, who lived, with a wife and two children, about eight miles to the northward.