While they were waiting for the great
case to come on a sort of depression seemed to spread
itself over the station. The owner was mostly
shut up in her room with her thoughts; the old lady
was trying to comfort her, and Ellen Harriott, with
sorrow always at her heart, went about the household
work like an automaton. No wonder that as soon
as breakfast was over all the men cleared out to work
on the run. But one day it so happened that Carew
did not go out with the others. The young Englishman
was a poor correspondent, and had promised himself
a whole quiet day to be spent in explaining by letter
to his people at home the mysterious circumstances
under which he had found and lost Patrick Henry Considine.
Ellen Harriott found him in the office manfully wrestling
with some extra long words, and stopped for a few minutes’
talk. She had a liking for the young Englishman,
and any talk was better than to be left alone with
her thoughts.
“These are bad times for the
old station, Mr. Carew,” she said. “We
don’t know what is going to happen next.”
Carew was not going to haul down the
flag just yet. “I believe everything ’ll
come all right in the long run, don’t you know,”
he said. “Never give up first hit, you
know; see it out eh, what?”
“I want to get away out of this
for a while,” she said. “I am run
down. I think the bush monotony tells on women.
I don’t want anyone to fall sick, but I do wish
I could get a little nursing to do again just
for a change. I would nurse Red Mick himself.”
Is there anything in telepathy?
Do coming events sometimes send warnings on ahead?
Certain it is that, even as she spoke, a rider on a
sweating horse was seen coming at full speed up the
flat; he put his horse over the sliprails that led
into the house paddock without any hesitation, and
came on at a swinging gallop.
“What is this?” said Ellen
Harriott, “more trouble? It is only trouble
that comes so fast. Why, it is one of Red Mick’s
nephews!” By this time the rider was up to them;
without dismounting he called out Miss! Please,
Miss! There’s been an accident. My
uncle got run agin a tree and he’s all smashed
in the head. I’m off to the Doctor now;
I’ll get the Doctor here by to-morrow night,
and would you go out and do aught you can for Mick?
There’s no one out there but old Granny, and
she’s helpless like. Will you go?”
“Is he much hurt?”
“I’m afraid he’s
killed, Miss. I found him, He’d been out
all night and the side of his head all busted.
After a dingo he was I seen the tracks.
Coming back from Gavan Blake’s he must ‘a’
seen the dorg off the track, and the colt he was on
was orkard like and must have hit him agen a tree.
The colt kem home with the saddle under his belly,
and I run the tracks back till I found him. Will
you go out, Miss?”
“Yes,” said Ellen, “I
will go. And you hurry on now, and get the Doctor.
Tell the Doctor I’ve gone out there.”
Like an arrow from the bow the young fellow sent his
big thoroughbred horse across the paddocks, making
a bee line over fences and everything for Tarrong,
while Ellen Harriott hurried in to pack up a few things.
“Can I help you at all?”
said Carew, following her into the house. I’d
like to be some use, don’t you know; but in this
country I seem to be so dashed useless.
“You will be a lot of use if
you will come out with me. I shall want someone
to drive the trap out, and I may want help with the
patient. You are big and strong.
“Yes, and it’s about the
first time my strength has even been of any use to
anybody. I will go and get the trap ready while
you dress.”
Hurriedly they packed food and blankets
into the light buggy, and set off. Miss Harriott
knew the tracks well, and the buggy fairly flew along
till they came up the flat to Red Mick’s.
As they drew near the hut a noise of talking and crying
came through the open door.
“What’s up now?” said Carew.
“Crowd of people there.”
“No” Ellen
Harriott listened for a second. “No,”
she said, “he is delirious. That is the
old woman crying. Hurry up, Mr. Carew take
the horse out of the buggy and put him in the stable,
and then come in as quickly as you can. I may
want help.”
Leaving Carew to unharness the horse,
she went inside. In the inner roomy on a bunk,
lay Red Mick. Eye, nose, forehead, and mouth were
all one unrecognisable lump, while fragments of bark
and splinters still stuck to the skin. In the
corner sat the old mother, crying feebly. Disregarding
the old woman, Ellen made a swift examination of Mick’s
injuries, but as soon as he felt her touch on his face
he sprang to his feet and struck at her.
Just as he did so, Carew rushed in
and threw his arms round the madman. In that
grip even Red Mick had no power to move.
“Just hold him quiet,”
said Ellen, “till I have a look” and
she rapidly ran her fingers over the wound. “Very
bad. I think there must be a bit of the skull
pressing on the brain. We can’t do much
till the Doctor comes. I think he will be quiet
now. Will you make a fire and boil some water,
so that I can clean and dress the wound That will ease
him a little. And get the blankets in; we can
make up some sort of place on the floor to sleep.
One of us will have to watch all night. Cranny,
you must go to bed, do you hear? Come and sit
by Mick till I put Granny to bed.”
By degrees they got things shipshape put
the old woman to bed, and cleaned and dressed Mick’s
wounds. Then they settled down for the long night
in the sick-room. A strange sick-room it was;
but many a hospital is less healthy. Through
wide cracks between the slabs there came in the cool,
fresh air that in itself is worth more than all the
medicines in the pharmacopoeia. The patient had
sunk into an uneasy slumber when Ellen made her dispositions
for the night.
“You go and lie down now,”
she said, “in the other room, on the sofa.
I will call you if I want you. Get all the sleep
you can, and in a couple of hours you can take my
place. He may talk, but don’t let that disturb
you. I will call out loud enough if I want you.”
“Mind you do,” said the
Englishman. “I sleep like a blessed top,
you know. Sleep anywhere. Well, good-night
for the present. He looks a little better since
you washed him, doesn’t he?”
He threw himself on the couch in the
inner room, and before long a titanic snore showed
that he had not over-rated his sleeping powers.
Ellen Harriott sat by Red Mick’s
bedside and thought over the events of the last few
weeks. As she thought she half-dozed, but woke
with a start to find her patient broad awake again
and trying to get at something that was under his
bunk. Quietly she drew him back, for his struggles
with Carew had left him weak as a child.
He looked at her with crazed eyes.
“The paper,” he said,
“for the love of God, the paper. I have
to take it to Gavan. ’Twill win the case.
The paper.”
She tried to pacify him, but nothing
would do but that she should get the mysterious paper.
At last, to humour him, she dived under the bunk and
found an iron camp-oven, and in it a single envelope.
Just to see what was exciting him she opened the envelope,
and found a crumpled piece of paper which she read
over to herself. It was the original certificate
of the marriage between Patrick Henry Keogh and Margaret
Donohoe; if Ellen had only known it, she held in her
hand the evidence to sweep away all her friend’s
troubles. It so happened, however, that it conveyed
nothing to her mind. She had heard much about
Considine, but not a word about Keogh, and the name
“Margaret Donohoe” did not strike her
half-asleep mind as referring to Peggy. She put
the paper away again in the camp-oven; then, feeling
weary, she awoke Carew and lay down on the couch while
he watched the patient.
Next morning the Doctor arrived with
a trail of Red Mick’s relations after him; among
them they arranged to take him into Tarrong to be
operated on, and Ellen Harriott and Carew drove back
to Kuryong feeling as if they had known each other
all their lives.
As they drove along she wondered idly
which of Red Mick’s innumerable relatives the
paper referred to, and why Mick was so anxious about
it; but by the time they arrived at home the matter
passed from her mind, except that she remembered well
enough what was written on the odd-looking little
scrap.
“I will give you a certificate
as a competent wardsman if ever you want one,”
she said to Carew as he helped her out of the buggy.
“I don’t know what I’d have done
without you.”
“You’d have managed somehow,
I’ll bet,” he said, looking at the confident
face before him. “Quite a bit of fun, wasn’t
it? I hope we have a few more excursions together.”
And she felt that she rather hoped so, too.