noon
Brushing through the long grass tussocks , he goes his way singing , his dog Rover careering joyously before him . The horse is clearly for a gallop , but it is too hot to-day . The tall flat-topped volcanic hill which hung before him like a grey faint cloud , when he started , now rears its fluted columns overhead , and now is getting dim again behind him . But ere noon is high he once more hears the brawling river beneath his feet , and Garoopna is before him on the opposite bank . The river , as it left Major Buckley 's at Baroona , made a sudden bend to the west , a great arc , including with its minor windings nearly twenty-five miles , over the chord of which arc Sam had now been riding , making , from point to point , ten miles , or thereabouts . The Mayfords ' station , also , lay to the left of him , being on the curved side of the arc , about five miles from Baroona . The reader may , if he please , remember this .