Some of the refugees that Hal radioed word back about were the four-footed kind. All through the flooded district, hundreds of mules and cattle were marooned on ridges and mounds. These hungry ones soon cleaned their tiny islands of every vestige of grass, moss and twigs. After that, they looked starvation in the face. Hal saw one hungry old horse, marooned on a bare little mound, who had the courage to plunge into the roaring flood, swim a hundred yards to a leafy tree that lifted its head above the yellow torrent, eat what waving green he could from it, then go struggling back to his mound. Such a courageous one deserved to be rescued. A radio message brought a barge to gather him up with a herd of other animals stranded on a ridge farther up.