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‘That’s all I kin do for him for the present.’

Mrs Spencer was a strong woman mentally, but she arrived rather pale and a little shaky: nevertheless she called out, as soon as she got within earshot of the doctor–

‘What’s Job been doing now?’ (Job, by the way, had never been remarkable for doing anything.)

‘He’s got his leg broke and shot his horse,’ replied the doctor. ‘But,’ he added, ‘whether he’s been a hero or a fool I dunno. Anyway, it’s a mess all round.’

They unrolled the bed, blankets, and pillows in the bottom of the trap, backed it against the log, to have a step, and got Job in. It was a ticklish job, but they had to manage it: Job, maddened by pain and heat, only kept from fainting by whisky, groaning and raving and yelling to them to stop his horse.

‘Lucky we got him before the ants did,’ muttered the doctor. Then he had an inspiration–

‘You bring him on to the shepherd’s hut this side the station. We must leave him there. Drive carefully, and pour brandy into him now and then; when the brandy’s done pour whisky, then gin–keep the rum till the last’ (the doctor had put a supply of spirits in the waggonette at Poisonous Jimmy’s). ‘I’ll take Mac.’s horse and ride on and send Peter’ (the station hand) ‘back to the hut to meet you. I’ll be back myself if I can. THIS BUSINESS WILL HURRY UP THINGS AT THE STATION.’

Which last was one of those apparently insane remarks of the doctor’s which no sane nor sober man could fathom or see a reason for–except in Doc. Wild’s madness.

He rode off at a gallop. The burden of Job’s raving, all the way, rested on the dead filly–

‘Stop her! She must not go home to Gerty!… God help me shoot!… Whoa!–whoa, there!… “Cope–cope–cope”–Steady, Jessie, old girl…. Aim straight–aim straight! Aim for me, God!–I’ve missed!… Stop her!’ etc.

‘I never met a character like that,’ commented the doctor afterwards, ‘inside a man that looked like Job on the outside. I’ve met men behind revolvers and big mustarshes in Califo’nia; but I’ve met a derned sight more men behind nothing but a good-natured grin, here in Australia. These lanky sawney Bushmen will do things in an easy-going way some day that’ll make the old world sit up and think hard.’

He reached the station in time, and twenty minutes or half an hour later he left the case in the hands of the Lancashire woman–whom he saw reason to admire–and rode back to the hut to help Job, whom they soon fixed up as comfortably as possible.

They humbugged Mrs Falconer first with a yarn of Job’s alleged phenomenal shyness, and gradually, as she grew stronger, and the truth less important, they told it to her. And so, instead of Job being pushed, scarlet-faced, into the bedroom to see his first-born, Gerty Falconer herself took the child down to the hut, and so presented Uncle Job with my first and favourite cousin and Bush chum.

Doc. Wild stayed round until he saw Job comfortably moved to the homestead, then he prepared to depart.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Job, who was still weak–‘I’m sorry for that there filly. I was breaking her in to side-saddle for Gerty when she should get about. I wouldn’t have lost her for twenty quid.’

‘Never mind, Job,’ said the doctor. ‘I, too, once shot an animal I was fond of–and for the sake of a woman–but that animal walked on two legs and wore trousers. Good-bye, Job.’

And he left for Poisonous Jimmy’s.

[THE END]

An incomplete glossary of Australian, British, or antique terms and concepts which may prove helpful to understanding this book:

“A house where they took in cards on a tray” (from Joe Wilson’s Courtship): An upper class house, with servants who would take a visitor’s card (on a tray) to announce their presence, or, if the family was out, to keep a record of the visit.