It was our custom at all camps to park the supply-train in the form of
an oval, with the tongues of the wagons outward and the wheels locked.
An entrance, the width of a wagon, was left at one end.

When, therefore, it became certain that a tempest was about to break
upon us, using the boy corporals as messengers, the chief wagon-master
received orders from me to drive up the mules and corral them within
the circle of wagons, and the commissary stock was hurried under the
shelter of a rocky mesa west of the camp. All this was to prevent a
stampede should the coming tempest be accompanied by wind and hail.

Tent-pins were driven in deeper, guys tightened, cavalry horses driven
up, hobbled, and secured to picket ropes, loose articles thrown into
wagons, and every precaution taken to be in readiness for the storm.

We had not long to wait before the rain came down in torrents. In an
incredibly short time the water was flowing swiftly down the slope to
the river. It gathered against our tent, and finding the frail
structure must go, we seized everything portable, dashed into the
furious downpour, and climbed to the tops of surrounding bowlders.

Through the sheets of rain we could dimly see the cavalry horses
standing knee-deep in water, men looking out of the covered wagons,
into which they had crawled for shelter, or standing, like ourselves,
on the bowlders, their bodies covered with ponchos and gum blankets.
Wall-tents, the sides of which had been looped up when pitched, stood
with the flood flowing through them; cranes, upon which hung lines of
kettles in preparation for dinner, standing alone, their fires and
firewood swept away. The whole country as far as we could see was one
broad sheet of rushing water, and the river, which was little more